


The cracks between.

by EdgyCrab



Series: the rift series [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dave lives, Five is still an asshole, Klaus and Dave adopt a teen, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Travel, but he's a caring asshole, everyone without fail has this, klaus is best character, klave for life, mainly Vietnam, no-one likes luther, possibly innacurate depictions of certain events, references to the legends of zelda, technically fanchild, time accurate guns though, which is the oc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2020-01-25 16:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18578434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgyCrab/pseuds/EdgyCrab
Summary: Another story where Dave lives and travels with Klaus to the future, and maybe in a perfect world, that would be all that was needed to stop the apocalypse, but this time, a third comes with them. This chronicles the story of Jaden, a member of the 43 who can open portals between realities, and dew to timeline differences, is 15 when the apocalypse happens, oops. Thankfully this opens an entire gateway of possibilities including, secret siblings, a dimension of pure energy, cannibals, aliens, and a pseudo-roman empire?This will become a crossover further down the line, so fandoms will be updated accordingly when they are added to the story.





	1. prologue - life

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is not beta read and could very well never be. I have no clear update plan for this, as I already have four actual chapters written out, this just gives an overview of the main character.
> 
> Hate me all you want for using an oc as the main character, or making them a fan child that's about half the age of the main cast of the show, but this is my fanfic and from my knowledge no-one is forcing you to read this, and if they are, I would hope this is not good torture, so have a light heart on that much, and seek help. I will however, be open to constructive criticism, as this is not wattpad, so I don't expect constant praise from minimal effort.

Jaden Nixen was born 12th of September, 2003, he was sure of it. But that had all come into question when he'd started to notice his powers.

He'd lived like a normal child for a long time, raised by a white, English family, who'd adopted him when he appeared on their doorstep one summers day. But when he was ten he started to notice holes in his room, holes that lead to places, whether they be other parts of his house, halfway across the world, or dimensions where its still socially acceptable to use children as a work force.

Sadly, if he didn't know where he was going, he could end up anywhere, literally. This was usually a fun experience, flowing between dimensions as he pleased, he met plenty of people there, good, bad, he thought he could handle it all. So maybe that was how he ended up in a hotel room, far from home.

 

* * *

 

The room was average from all accounts Jaden could think of. Two beds, a bathroom, and a closet, he walked around the room silently, coming towards a vent, which he looked through to see a briefcase, he just shrugged it off and went to open the door, then he heard it, the desperate muffled screams of someone from the wardrobe.

"Hello." He said softly as he walked towards the closet, the screams got momentarily louder, before Jaden pulled it open to see a man in nothing more than a towel, tied to a chair with duct tape over his mouth. Jay was shocked to the point where he had to take a step back to stop himself from retching at the sight. "By the gods." He mumbled, reaching forward before taking the duct tape off. There was heavy breathing from the man before he spoke.

"Thank you." He said, though there was a sort of lilt too his voice that Jaden hadn't heard a lot. "I was starting to get, rea-lly tired in there." He said, before sighing, and leaning back. Jaden just raised an eyebrow, "Hey, could you like, get my coat." He said, gesturing with his head towards a very nice coat, laying on one of the beds. He walked over to it, feeling the fabric slightly, before gripping its collar and dragging it back towards the man, who started shuffling his way, to try and exit the wardrobe.

"Um, can I get your name?" He asked, as he crouched in front of the chair.

"Su-re, su-re, can you just feel through the pockets, see if there's anything left." Jaden scrunched his face up slightly, but didn't question it as he felt through the pockets. Before long he felt something, and pulled it out to take a look, it was a small bag of pills, he couldn't find a label on them though.

"Are these drugs?" He asked, unable to determine what they where, though he could tell they probably weren't legal. The man laughed, it was breathy, as though he wasn't entirely there.

"Yea-h, so what." He said, and now he could tell what was wrong with the man. He was clearly, at least somewhat high still, and by the looks of it, he wasn't enjoying the slight sobriety.

"Um, why where you in there?" He asked, not sure what to do.

"Oh, just some people who kidnap people from there homes, rudely interrupted me just after a bath as well." He said, as he sighed again. "Can I have the drugs now, plea-se." He said, sounding more like someone using puppy eyes than a man asking for drugs. Jaden placed the drugs into his pocket, and went to untie him, though he got some light discouragement from the man himself. "No-, drugs first." This was just getting weird.

"We need to get out first, if they really are abductors, then we can't leave any reason for them to believe your gone. He said, probably obvious that he'd dealt with abductors, and abductees before.

"Ooh, smart boy then." He said, just as Jaden was able to get the last of the rope off. He started to shove the stuff back into the closet, before closing it, just to see the man opening the vent, to grab the briefcase. Jaden sighed, though he couldn't blame the pitiful man before him.

He heard the bickering before he saw the shadows, two figures walking towards the room, before stopping in front of the door. Jaden, not thinking too much jumped towards the man, trying to open a portal again, though he was caught in a blue light before he could.


	2. chapter 1 - war

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> klaus, Dave, and Jaden arrive back in 2019 safe and sound, but family is a difficult thing to deal with, and Five really wants that briefcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to an error, I'm publishing the first actual chapter now, so that it shows up today, I am going to wait a while before the second chapter is released though.

The three of them collapsed onto the bus, grunts of discomfort coming from all three. It was when Jaden looked up that he started to laugh, it was almost hollow, a small shred of humanity missing, being replaced by something more sinister.

"We made it." He said, as he sat up, wincing slightly as blood started to ooze from his shoulder. "Fuck." He turned back around to see Klaus and Dave, or, his dads as he'd known them for the past few months. He smiled as Klaus looked at him, being greeted by a genuinely happy one from the older male.

"Oh you smart boy you." Klaus said, shuffling over and ruffling Jaden's hair, before grabbing his cheeks and lifting his face to his, a darker look now on his face. "Though next time, don't put your life in danger." He said, before he smiled again, and pulled the others head into his chest.

"Sorry dad, I just had a bad feeling about it." He said, subconsciously gripping the briefcase, the two had been dragging with them for several months. All three men where in military uniform, it would be worth a lot, since,  despite natural wear and tear from batting, their uniforms where in mint condition.

"What just happened." Dave said, sitting up, he held his head, as it seemed to throb in pain. His partner and son just smiled at him.

"Welcome to 2019." Jaden said happily. "We have, legal gay marriage and adoption, about seven hundred genders, and are approximately at war with just about everyone, also the nest Hitler is President." That last one got a laugh out of Klaus, who once again ruffled Jaden's hair. None of them took notice to the man just minding his own business, when the three had appeared, he hadn't looked away since he'd seen them, too intrigued by the three, and their military uniforms, as well as the briefcase in the youngest's hand.

The bus stopped, and Klaus stood up to look out the window, "Well, this is our stop." Jaden smiled, standing up, and rubbing some of the dirt off his clothes, his chest felt tight, but he ignored it in favor of looking at his shot shoulder. Dave followed their lead, standing up, and looking out the window, before being taken off the bus, lead by Klaus, with Jaden between the two, Good hand holding the briefcase, while his bad one held Dave's.

The three walked for less than a few minutes, before coming before one of the many entrances to The Umbrella Academy, though they didn't quite know how many entrances there where. "Is this where you live, dad?" Jaden asked, letting go of his other dads hand. Klaus just smiled as he opened the door.

*******

Jaden was in slight awe once they'd moved through the shop like exterior, and into the main building. "What kind of place is this?" Jaden asked, he could tell Dave was also in awe behind him though. Klaus smiled as he lead them through the building.

"One built out of an entire square blocks worth of buildings." Klaus said as he walked down a hallway, "Main sleeping quarters are thataway." He pointed down a hallway, before lifting the arm into a shrug. "But those are all taken by me and my siblings." He said, before doing a u turn to go down a completely different hallway. But there was someone there, a kid, no older than 15 stood with his hands in the pockets of his shorts looking annoyingly at Klaus.

"Klaus, who are they." He said, not paying mind to either of the guests.

"This is Dave." Klaus said, gesturing to Dave, "And Jaden." He gestured down to Jaden, they're my family, Five, they're going to be staying here for the foreseeable future." He said sternly. He got like this easily, protective of those he cared about, dismissive of those he we weren't, Jaden had witnessed this many a times when faced with officers who thought Jaden was too young, or questioned either of the older males' relationship with him. The teen, Five, just glared at them.

"If you hadn't noticed, the apocalypse is happening in four days, this is no time to start bringing your drug dealers into our house." He spoke as though he was above all of them, and that annoyed Jaden. He held the case with both hands, almost tempted to portal behind him, and use the case to knock him out. Five noticed his grip on the case and finally acknowledged him. "Is that Hazel and Cha-Cha's case." He said, stepping towards him. Klaus just stepped in front of Jaden, putting his arm in front of the other.

"Yes, we took it when we escaped." Klaus said, slightly annoyed, "Also I've been clean for months now." Five ignored him, reaching out a hand for the case.

"Give it me." He said, Jaden just pulling the case towards his chest. Five narrowed his eyes again "I said give it." He looked ready to punce, and for that Jaden was also ready, if needs be he would portal out of the house, come back later hopefully.

"Why do you want it so bad." He said, eyeing the teenager. Five just sighed, though he didn't untense his body.

"I need to lure Hazel and Cha-cha, there's someone I need to see, that only they can contact." Jaden narrowed his eyes even more, widening his step, and lowering, his wound was still gauging blood, but he could ignore it in favor of kicking this guy in the head.

"Hazel and Cha-cha, the guys who kidnapped klaus?" He asked, more concerned than anything. What did he have to do with kidnappers.

"Is that where he's been all day." He said, as though he'd barely noticed, "Or has it been somewhere else, or more likely somewhen?" He said, finally seeming to notice the confused look on Dave's face, and the threes attire.

"Vietnam 1968." Jaden said, taking the reigns of the conversation. "It's where Dave was from. We spent ten months there." He said, relaxing slightly, which in turn, seemed to cause Five to relax in response.

"A bit young aren't you?" Jaden snorted. He heard, Klaus begin to motion Dave away, probably before they got into a fight, neither needed both Klaus' moma bear, and Dave's papa bear reactions to this.

"The amount of times I've heard that, it's almost an inside joke now, that I'm only fifteen, and survived ten months in Vietnam." Jaden said light heartedly, though there was also a challenge to it.

"Impressive, but I bet you cant do this." He dissapeared, and the shock of a sudden blow to the back caused him to tilt forward, into a waiting portal, which was now behind Five. He swung the case, hitting the other on the head, and to the side. He coughed up some spit, and Jaden himself was in shock, though he took the next moment to open a portal beneath himself, and slipped into what he hoped was another part of the mansion.

*******

Klaus returned to find Five up against the wall, nurturing his hurt head. He just sighed, "You attacked him didn't you." Five looked up at him incredulously.

"He's done that before?" Klaus nodded slightly, smiling at the memory as he leaned against the other wall.

"All the time, used to portal behind the enemy lines, and shoot like there was no tomorrow." He remembered another time that any of them had almost died, they'd been jumped, the front lines hadn't been dug out yet, and Jaden had taken them all out in three seconds flat, no-one had seemed to notice he'd gone missing, just noticed when he walked back towards them, giving a thumbs up.

"He's one of us." Five said, and Klaus nodded.

"He can travel dimensions too, any place, any universe, said it himself." Klaus looked at where the chandelier used to be. Five had stood up now, and walked past him, dusting off some slight rubble that had got onto his blazer and shorts.

"Right, sure, but you dont get it, I need that briefcase." Five said, annoyed. Before beginning to limp off down the hallway again. "Your drug dealer, or whoever he is, where would he go." Klaus looked at Five before beginning after him.

"It's hard to tell, he could be anywhere, he could be on any planet or in any universe, if you'd have asked nicely he would have given it to you." Klaus said, amused, the hilarity of the situation not escaping him, his apocalypse surviving brother, vs his multidimensional son. "And he's not my drug dealer, he's my son." He was merely waved off, and he knew his dismissal would probably lead to his downfall in the end, or maybe it will be his clinging on to the apocalypse.

"Well, we dont have time to act nicely." He said as he stalked down the hallway. "We have to stop the apocalypse." klaus just sighed, too busy having a headache now, than to deal with the smaller brothers problems.

"Well if he wants to get away from you, he will, he told me he fought in some sort of pseudo- roman arena thing. Became a god too, I don't really get it, but it sounds cool enough." Klaus said, he needed a drink. Five didn't stop but he did look confused.

"Sudo- Roman arena?" He asked, more to himself than to Klaus, and Klaus hummed in agreement, looking down at the shiny marble flooring bellow them, and he questioned for a second, what the tile would be worth if he tried to pawn it, but he scrapped the thought quickly, reminding himself that he had stability in his life now, he had a loving boyfriend, and son to think about, not drugs.

"Yeah, I don't know much about it, said he had a shield or some shit." He laughed slightly, when Jaden had tried to retrieve it, he had come back saying it was the wrong time, he'd have to remind the younger to get it later.

"I'm guessing his powers where a good edge then." Five said, more than asked, he seemed to be more focused on checking every room in the house. There was a loud squeal from Kluas' old room, and both turned to see Jaden in Klaus' favorite coat, walking down the hallway very content with himself.

"How do I look boys." He said, extremely cheakily, carrying the briefcase, like he was going on holiday.

"Thats my coat." Klaus half asked, half stated. The coat was so long, it was nearly reaching the ground on the smaller male, and the sleeves where pulled up just so they didn't go over his hands too much.

"Indeed, father." He said in an extremely high pitched voice that he'd only heard from the other a few times, not matter how much he tried to deny it, he had quite a bit of Klaus in him, despite their lack of blood relation. Five gave the opposing male a once over, before sighing.

"Can I have the case, please." He said, holding his hand out for it.

"No can do I'm afraid." The younger said, "It's mine now, I've played with it over the past few months, and took too many parts to think about, might not even work properly anymore." Five gave him a death glare.

"What." He looked down at the case again. "How did you not go spiraling through time, or get stuck somewhere else, how where you able to get back." He said, accusingly. Jaden just looked insulted, again more like Klaus than he'd care to admit.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I said it might not work properly, not that it doesn't work at all, it's actually quite simple to use if you know how to use it." He said, though not to Klaus' shock, it hadn't been the first time, he'd had that news thrown on him out of nowhere. "I got some of my friends from futuristic Rome to look at it. Found a tracking device in it. I also took out some parts to see if I could turn other objects into time travelling devices." Now that had both Klaus' and Five's attentions.

"And" Five said, a slight intrigue in his voice.

"And I cant let you take it until I'm done, I want to see if I can make an actual ocarina of time first." Of course he'd try to make something from a video game.

"But I need to lure Hazel and Cha-cha." Jaden just waved Five off.

"Just use a decoy or something." He said, walking away. "I don't know why, but if they took Klaus, and ate weed chocolate, I don't think they're as smart as they think they are." Jaden said, as he walked down beside him, and to Klaus, who was currently being a very proud parent.

"Wait, they ate weed chocolate?" Five asked. He wouldn't admit it, but he was slightly amused at the thought.

"That's what dad said." He said, sauntering down the hallway, towards no-where in particular. Five looked at Klaus, who just shrugged and walked after Jaden.

*******

Dave settled into his room quite nicely, and was pleasantly surprised when both Klaus and Jaden walked into his new room, unharmed. Even though Jaden was wearing a coat. "Where did you get that coat from?" Dave asked Jaden, as he sat down on Dave's bed, testing it by bouncing on it slightly.

"It's mine." Klaus said, and Dave sighed light heartedly.

"Of course it is." He said, he was changing into some of Diego's old clothes, if what Klaus had told him was correct. He looked at Jaden, who seemed to be pulling at the bandages over his chest. "We should get you something better than bandages." Klaus said, worried tone lacing his voice. It wasn't uncommon for this to happen, Jaden had a habit of rapping his bandages too tight, to the point where it hurt him, or even worse. Jaden looked up at Klaus and smiled sadly, hands gripping the stark white bedding, nodding slightly. "come on Jay, I'll take you to your room." Jaden stood up.

"Ok." He said, following Klaus out, Dave just waited there, certain that Klaus would return within dew time.

It took no less than ten minutes for Klaus to return to him, and he sighed upon entering, wiping a hand over his forehead. "tired." Dave said, walking towards him, he didn't have much to pack, on account of them coming here in a hurry. In fact they only had the clothes on their backs, and the briefcase, not that they had much more with them in the first place though. The room was nothing special, cream walls with basic wooden furniture, and white bedding, probably prepared in case of the sudden arrival of guests, and meticulously cleaned throughout the years.

"Yeah." Klaus looked tired, his eye liner was slightly smudged, and he could probably do with a shave, he hadn't had one for a bit. "Jaden's cleaning his wounds, I'm thinking of ordering him some clothes online." He said, he closed the door and almost collapsed into Dave's waiting arms. "It's cheaper, and easier." He mumbled, now into Dave's chest. Dave chuckled.

"You've gone through worse battles than this." Klaus chuckled in response, before turning his face up towards Dave.

"My siblings are emotionally draining at the best of times." He said breathily laughing, he was drained to the point of exhaustion, and Dave knew this well. He stroked Klaus' hair as he lead them to the bed, both just sitting there for a time.

"Well I cant wait to meet the rest of them." He said happily, more relaxed then he was quite possibly used to. He hadn't felt this free in a long time. "Are you going to stay here, or are you going back to your room?" He asked down at the other. Klaus mumbled something, just pressing even more into his lover, who just smiled and continued to weave his hands through the others hair.

They fell asleep like that, resting silently on the bed, Dave with his fingers still in Klaus' hair, and Klaus still with his head in his lovers chest, silent, and relaxed.

 


	3. chapter 2 - love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaden meets the rest of his new family, and tensions start to build from their generally disorganised nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the second chapter, and I'm beginning to realise that I need something to spellcheck my writing because this was just a slog to edit. This is also where my my memory of what happens in the show begins to fail me, which becomes a bit more apparent later. I'm hoping to be able to upload the next few chapters a few days apart each, to maximise interest, mostly because I understand that not a lot of people like fanfics with prominent ocs, also what sort of spellcheck system does ao3 have to not recognise the word realised. Seriously, thats just weird.

The next mourning, Jaden awoke to the sound of shouts, or at the very least, very loud talking. It didn't take long to locate the sound, and open a portal, not even thinking of changing out of his uniform the previous night, except to take his bandages off, he soon stood in what looked like the living room, where a number of people where talking loudly. "Can you guys be quiet please, some people are trying to sleep." He said, without even looking at who was there.

"The fuck is she." That caused him to open his eyes, and looked at the strangest man he'd ever seen. He looked like he was wearing a jumper, but with a bunch of belts over it, that seemed to hold knives. He also had a scar on the side of his head.

"And who 'the fuck' are you, povo batman." That got a laugh out of Klaus, who was sat, on a seat to the side of what looked like a bar, arms splayed out, and some kind of shirt under his army jacket.

"That's surprisingly accurate." Klaus side, not stopping his sudden laughing fit, as he curled forward, eventually waving at some unknown force, a ghost, probably.

"Hey." The man said. "Don't encourage her Klaus." Oh right, misgendering.

"I'm a guy actually." He said, annoyed at him. This got a once over from the man, "Your trans?" He asked, not accusingly, though he did seem slightly confused by this.

"I literally just woke up a second ago, I'm sorry if my breasts are disturbing you too, sadly I cant have surgery to get rid of them yet, and I don't quite think dads got enough legally obtained money to pay for it anyway, even if I was." He ranted, the amount of times he'd had close calls in Vietnam, was simultaneously insane, and reasonable, they didn't even except gay people, let alone trans people, back then.

"Oh. Sorry." He said, and Jaden nodded, he wasn't one to hold onto something like this, unless it was someone just being openly transphobic. "But seriously, who are you, and how do you know Klaus." He turned slightly to point at him. "I swear, if your one of his drug dealers-" Jaden just groaned.

"What is it with you people and thinking that me and papa are my dads drug dealers, or something." Jaden said, loudly, he was annoyed, again, the nerve of these people. This seemed to catch the man, he guessed one Klaus' brothers, as well as everyone else in the room, off guard. The man looked at Klaus.

"Dad? Your a dad?" He asked Klaus, who just smiled at him.

"Yes Diego, I've been a dad since, well for you it would be about yesterday, for me, it was about ten months ago actually." He said, cheekily giving Diego a grin. "Time travels a pesky thing." There was a sigh from the other side of the room, where Five appeared to be sitting.

"I can vouch for the fact that he time traveled, not that he and, whoever else he brought with him, adopted, whoever this is." five said, drinking something clear, he hoped it was water, but knowing his dad's family, it was probably some sort of alcohol.

"Jaden." He said. Jaden looked at the other people in the room, there was a a women, with dyed blonde hair, and a man too muscular on the top half of his, unusually tall body, to be entirely human, he could also tell, by the way he seemed to be showing as little skin as humanly possible. "Nice to meet you all." Jaden addressed the rest of them, he got a slight smile from the woman, and a slight glare from the man, very welcoming indeed. there was the sound of footsteps from coming towards them, and a woman walked in with a man.

"Is there a family meeting without me?" She asked, looking quite sad at the thought, and Jaden could tell, she was probably the most normal person in the family, and from what he'd heard about them, this was more than just unusual. the others where about to say something, when he spoke up.

"Aunt Vanya, I'm guessing." He said, as he looked at her. She seemed relatively shocked by this. She had a bad posture, and her hair was tied into some sort of bun, not flattering to her image, but what was even worse was the man slightly behind her, he couldn't tell why, but he'd seen his fair share of manipulators in his life.

"You, know about me?" She asked quietly, stepping forward towards him.

"The only one that dad could say more than one positive word about, besides Uncle Ben? Of course he mentioned you. To which I should probably introduce myself, I'm Jaden, Klaus' adoptive son." she seemed to chirp up at his sentence. Something that made her shine brighter than he'd seen, and the thought made him happy.

"Really? I hadn't expected Klaus, to be the second of us to become a parent." She said, teasing slightly, he knew he liked her already.

"Hey." Klaus said from behind them. The man behind Vanya tapped her on the shoulder, seeming to remind her of something, before she spoke again.

"Oh yeah, I got first chair, and I'm going to be performing at a concert in four days, I wanted to see if you'd come, since, I can reserve up to ten seats." She said, and Jaden grinned.

"I cant speak for these bastards." He motioned to the others behind him, "But I'd love to come, and papa has an appreciation for music, so I'm sure he'd love to come too." He looked back at the looks the others where both giving him, Vanya, Vanya's friend, and Klaus, he was a little annoyed at that last one. "Save one for dad too, I'm sure Papa would love to spend his last day with the man he loves, on a date with him." This made Vanya smile even bigger, clearly not a too usual occurrence from how shaky it was.

"Yeah sure, anyone else." Jaden turned, no-one was any longer looking in Vanya's direction.

"Is that why your here, to distract us." Diego said, from where he now sat on the back of the sofa. He turned to look at Vanya darkly. "I thought I told you not to get involved with stuff you shouldn't mess with, since you dont have powers, and now you want to distract us." Vanya may have looked upset, but Jaden was downright insulted by the way he seemed to be treating his own sister.

"The fuck is wrong with you." He said, wishing to cover up his chest, but not doing so on account of the fact he wanted to be ready for a fight. "Your own sister comes to you, to invite you to a concert, that you should be proud she got into, as her brother, and you essentially tell her to fuck off. No, fuck you, your probably the worst brother ever, if the world is ending, you should spend it with family, not wasting your time, or if you can stop it, do it, don't waste your time building walls between your siblings because of it." He said, slowly stalking closer to his Uncle.

"You know nothing about us." He said, pulling out one of his knives, and pointing it towards Jaden. "You should feel lucky that you weren't raised by the worst father in all of history." He was close now, and Jaden got his bearings in front of him.

"Then why are you pushing away the only people who understand you, is it because she doesn't have powers? That shouldn't determine which members of your family you respect 'Uncle', you all had the same father, I highly doubt she got favored treatment over you." This made Diego stop for a second, not in movement, but in thought, his mind running through all the times he could remember Vanya interacting with their father, no love, she was taken, gone for lengths of time, but so was Klaus though. Same schedule, same clothes, same rules. The only difference was training sessions, of which she had none. Diego almost dropped his knife, how could he have not realised the similarities between them all.

"Your right." He sheathed the knife. "She was treat like the rest of us." He turned back towards them, the other woman, Aunt Allison, is she remembered correctly, was smiling proudly at him, however small it was.

"I'd love to go." She said to Vanya, who smiled again, though it was sadder than before, it had a new found happiness in it, one of an unknown sort, or source, and Jaden could tell it made her a lot happier herself.

"You can call me, if you change your mind." She said, before walking out with her male friend, and Jaden swore he could see a slight glare in his eyes, though he chose to ignore it for now, not from lack of suspicion though. He looked back at the family of dysfunctional adults.

"Well, that went better than it could have." Five said, continuing to drink his, definitely alcoholic beverage.

*******

Five sat down at the bar, vodka in hand, as he saw Klaus and Jaden walk off, to see Dave. The three others in the room turned to him. "Ok, you said you can vouch for Klaus time travelling, so whats your take on this situation." Diego said, crossing his arms and leaning on a table. Allison was doing something similar, except with more grace, and less angst.

"Well if its any consulation, I think he seems really nice." Allison said. Five looked at her curiously. He'd only known him for less than a day, and even he didn't trust him, yet Allison already had a positive opinion of him.

"You actually trust him?" He asked, taking another drink of his vodka. He would have preferred some coffee this early, but they had yet to get any good coffee yet.

"He seems fine enough." Allison said, turning to him. "Besides, it might be a good thing for Klaus to have the responsibility of taking care of a child on his shoulders." she said with a shrug.

"Would have thought you'd have criticized him for taking him in to be honest, considering his thing with, drugs." Diego said, with a slate gulp, he walked to sit at the bar, his right arm in a sling, from being shot multiple times the day before. Allison smiled grimly.

"Sometimes children can bring out the best in us." She said, she looked more like she was gripping her arms now, no doubt thinking about her daughter, that she wasn't allowed to see.

"Or the worst." Diego corrected, as he poured himself a drink of vodka. Five just looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but thought nothing more of it, he wasn't one to judge peoples choices of beverages.

"I think, he's one of us." Five began. Not looking at any of his siblings, instead focusing on the taxidermy beast opposite him. "And he's aware of what he's able to do. I also believe he's more socially aware than all of us put together, probably dew to a normal upbringing." He said, looking from one sibling to another. They where in a grim sort of agreement, Jaden had certainly proved himself to be interesting enough, that Five would be keeping an eye on him, no matter what Klaus' feelings on this where.

"We should stop getting distracted." Luther spoke up, walking around the bar. "Now as I was saying, we need to find my research from the moon-" There was a unanimous sigh from all of the siblings in the room, except Luther. Though Five, more wanted to laugh now, than he had in a long time, he avoided the thought for the time being.

"Luther, you realised that Dad probably sent you to the moon to get you out of the way right?" Five said, after taking another drink to calm the urge to laugh.

Luther looked at him sternly "Dad wouldn't do that." Luther said, he was angry, Five could tell. Innocently believing everything their 'father' told him, it was almost pitiable, at least even Klaus, who was actually pitiable for the most part, recognised their fathers bullshit.

"Luther, he probably never even opened your samples, he just knew that you needed a routine, so you would stay away from him." Five said. He needed more intelligent family, with any look, their newest addition might actually prove to be the intelligence this family needed, or at least the common sense. Luther looked to be seething now.

"SHUT UP FIVE, YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM LIKE I DID." Luther shouted at him, clenching his fists, as though he was going to attack. "UNLIKE ALL OF YOU, I STAYED, BECAUSE I TRUST HIM, AND I'D LIKE TO THINK THAT TRUST WAS RETURNED." Luther started to break down slightly, not crying like most, but almost as though the rage had turned to numbness, Five could relate. "He wouldn't do that to me." He said, in a strained sort of quietness, before he started stomping towards the direction of their "father's" office. Allison watched him walk off, seeming to hold herself back, before she turned to Five, a hesitant concern on her face.

"Don't worry, he'll realise the truth soon enough." Five said, before he took the last drink of his coffee. With that, he hopped off his stool and decided to see where the more interesting side of the family had gone off to, he heard Allison and Diego talking from the room he'd just been in, no doubt their concern over Luther, and Klaus being major pointers in their conversation, again.

*******

Dave was sat on 'his' bed, or at least the one that was in the room, that Klaus had allowed him to use, as Klaus and Jaden walked in. Klaus immediately flopped on the bed, while Jaden hung around the door frame, acting as though he was too cool to hang with his dads. Dave just patted Klaus hair though, smiling gently, it was light and fluffy, curling in all sorts of weird ways, while not being too long, though still surprisingly so as his hand kept sinking at least a few centimetres into the fluffy mess. "Hard day at work honey." He joked, it was still mourning, and Dave was content to let it be so.

"Just my annoying siblings." Klaus said, as he let his boyfriend pet his hair calmly, it just soothed him so much to be treated like this by him. Jaden snorted from the door, and the two turned to him.

"Are you still wearing your bandages." Dave said worriedly, as he looked at Jaden's chest. "You don't need to wear them all the time anymore Jaden, we're not in Vietnam." Dave knew very little about this world he was now apart of, sure, but at least he knew that the young male didn't need to look entirely masculine here.

"He shouldn't have to wear them at all actually." Klaus said from beside him, he sat up sluggishly, leaning on Dave as he sat. "We have binders here, and their a lot safer to wear." He said. Dave looked at him slightly confused.

"A binder?" He hoped they didn't mean the sort of binders you held papers in.

"It's made to push down breasts so that it looks like the person wearing it doesn't have breasts, they are used by people who are born female and identify as male, or non binary, which essentially means neither gender; or any other gender really, it's not something you have to worry about." Jaden said, waving him off at the end. Though his explanation had just made the poor 1960's man even more confused.

"Non-binary? other genders? What on earth happened to just male and female." He was going to end up having a headache at this point. He felt Klaus put a hand on his shoulder, and looked to see his worried face. Oh how he needed it right now.

"Don't worry about it too much Dave, no-one understands it fully, not even me." Klaus said, gesturing to himself. The pride in his tone was a pleasant surprise, something he'd not heard often from the other, and he found himself leaning into his boyfriend to just have a moment of calm, and pride of his own.

"Oh, Five." He heard Jaden say, and he turned to see the smaller man, who was simultaneously older than all his siblings, not combined, but still way too old, and yet, too young.

"Did you need something." Dave could hear the displeasure in Klaus' voice, he saw Jaden move from where he was looking at Five, and felt the bed dip beside him.

"Just wanted to see what the more, interesting members of this family where up to." He said, as he examined the room, criticizing the fact that he had nothing in this time to his name, probably.

"Well I'm afraid it was just them being weird." Jaden said, Dave figured it was the romance part and not the gay part, Jaden had always been the one to judge the least about his sexuality, besides Klaus, even going so far as to join them in fights with their fellow soldiers in their off time.

"I'm sure they where." Five said, walking into the room, still not looking at any of them, "Are you done with the briefcase yet." He said, finally turning to do some sort of pseudo glare at the teen, and Dave couldn't help but put a protective arm around him. Jaden glared back, poorly innocent, and never afraid to accept a challenge; he'd once challenged a soldier to hand to hand combat with swords, and somehow pulled out this golden sword from nowhere. Suffice to say he'd won the battle with flying colors, even when the other had been thrown a sword by his challenger, that was the day Dave truly learnt that his son could care for himself.

"Science takes time, Five." Jaden answered, he was crouching, Dave could tell by the way the duvet scrunched when his toes curled.

"I know full well that it takes a long time, I spent 45 years coming up with an equation to get home, and even that wasn't perfect." He said, turning away again, though this time it was to the floor. "Besides I don't need it for a decoy, we used a fake, and it worked fine for our purposes, but in case something happens, we need a fail safe, and I don't think I can take 8 people with me through time." He said. He seemed more meek in those moments, like he was questioning everything he knew, and that coming from a child's body just made Dave want to hug the poor guy until he could somehow do the magic parent thing, where he made all the problems go away. And it was sad that he had to fight that urge this time. A quick glance to his left showed a stern Jaden, scrunching his face up in neither hatred nor disgrace, but more a similar sort of hesitance he felt.

"I'm not going to break it Five." He was stern now, in tone, and both Dave and Klaus knew that he was fighting himself not to show emotion in this mode, he'd only ever used it a few times, but those times where dangerous and confrontational to the point of endangering their little family, usually only used when one was threatened to be sent back to country, or when someone had looked a little too deeply into the relationship between them. It reminded Dave of a story he'd been told once, about a Roman soldier who fought in a gladiator ring for some sort of trivial glory, but this was one fight, with a much bigger prize. "I know my quantum physics well enough, besides, I'll have it if we need it Five, besides, I know few universes we could go to if we where in serious distress, I open portals, unlike you, so it may be easier to work in pieces than to travel all at once." Five clenched his fist. Walking silently out, he couldn't tell if he was angry or annoyed, or surprised, he seemed like the sort to never let his mask fall, and the thought of the others being like that scared him. In another world, something similar could have happened to any of the siblings, even Klaus, and Jaden could probably show them a world where that happened.

*******

Vanya had no words to describe how well that had gone, to the point where she could have sworn she was hallucinating, I mean, Jaden was too sweet of a child to be in her cursed family, and Klaus was actually being a supportive brother for once, and she couldn't tell if it was his new boyfriends, or sons doing, but she liked this new responsible Klaus, and he seemed happier as well. She also could have sworn she saw hatred and jealousy in Lenard's eyes for a moment there, but she was convinced, that if nothing else, that was fake. She had felt happier than she had in a long time, to the point where she was near skipping down the road in glee.

"Vanya." Lenard's voice said, above her thoughts, and she turned to see him looking behind her. "Look." He said, pointing to the lamp posts, that where now bent into a sort of archway around the road. It wasn't something she thought would be unusual, surely they'd been like this for a while now? It was aesthetically pleasing enough, and seemed to give the bright road a sort of ethereal property to it. "You have powers." He said, ok this had to be a dream now. Vanya smiled at her friend, boyfriend?

"Come on Lenard, I'm sure they where always like this, I understand you trying to make this good day better, but this is too much, really." She said, with a laugh. When was the last time she'd even done that? There was a look on Lenard's face, though she couldn't see it very well, with the way his face was covered in shadows, but when he turned around to face her properly, he was beaming, just like her.

"Your right, it was probably like this all along, and I'd just never noticed." He continued walking on. He was silly sometimes, but it was endearing, how sweet he always was, trying to make her feel special, even when she didn't have any powers. But even though they'd both written it off, she turned back around, looking further down the street to see straight lamp posts all they way down, how strange.

 


	4. chapter 3 - dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their first full day together, all of the previously active umbrella academy children have dinner together for the first time in a long time. Sadly the apocalypse spoils everything, even dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woooo, chapter 3. I'm currently on to writing chapter 6, so i hope i can keep this pace up for a little bit. I downloaded a dictionary onto my computer to help spellcheck, but the dictionary is even more convoluted than not writing with one, so i'll just do what I've done previously.

It was tea time, or dinner time, supper time, whatever these American's called it, and it looked like no-one had ever had a family tea before, or at least not in a long time. Luther had stayed standing up for a whole five minutes behind his chair, before finally being told by Diego to sit down, and eating his space food slowly. Diego was having takeout, that he'd ordered for himself, despite this weird woman, that he assumed was his grandmother's opinion, to have a full course meal. Allison, Klaus, Dave, Jaden and Five had all excepted that meal, though Five had replaced his drink with alcohol laced coffee, and Jaden had gone and portaled in a coke.

"You shouldn't steal Jay." Dave berrated him, a stern look on his face, "i'm sure Klaus' family had some coke here somewhere." Klaus nearly ended up spitting his own coffee out at that, coughing a few seconds before answering.

"Uh, no, dad hated caffeine, we only have coffee because of Five." He said gesturing at Five. "And thank you for that by the way." Jaden couldn't tell if it was supposed to be mocking, or sincere, and that made him smile. Besides the three of them, the entire family had an awkward silence to it, even Klaus seemed to be at least partially effected by it, and that worried Jaden, his dad was never quiet.

"So, was this common before." Jaden said, he was sat at one end of the table, the seat opposite him, was completely empty, and he somehow had a thought of who might have sat their. His words seemed to break the silence between them, Allison even glancing at her, before she turned back to continue to pick at her food.

"Everyday." She said, lowering her head. The silence of the room caused it to dawn on Jaden how bleak it was, with only a hole in the wall acting as an inside entrance. It was both a dinning room and a kitchen, and the table only had eight seats, one for Reginald Hargreeves, and each of his children. It was too bleak and bunker like, plain brick walls painted once over, and a ceiling. It felt way too small, and he felt himself gulping, staring at the ceiling, he almost fell back even, if it wasn't for Dave's hand on the back of his chair.

"Don't slip away on us, ok." Dave said, trying to be comforting, but Jaden could almost feel the unease slipping from him. He tilted his chair back up though, and began to dig into his food. It wasn't half bad, it was obviously cooked from scratch with the way the Yorkshire puddings to such an English meal, where all different.

"Mmm." He said, taking a bite of the pudding. He hadn't had real food in months, only the previsions handed to every soldier, though he had gotten more on occasions where Dave or Klaus had given him some of theirs, it wasn't often though, usually only when they'd seen something truly horrifying, though there where cases where the opposite was true as well. There was a remorseful look on Klaus' face, as he stared at his meal, eating almost painfully slowly, while his siblings ate quicker. Even Five seemed to gauge down the food like he hadn't had a meal like this in a lifetime, and in truth he guessed he hadn't.

*******

Luther seemed to finish long before anyone else, and Klaus almost mourned when the giant half gorilla opened his mouth. "So." He said, his voice filled with certainty "Klaus, we've all come to a unanimous decision that-"

"Stop." Jaden interrupted. He held up a hand, his voice was weaker than usual, the memories surely getting to him. "Is this about the apocalypse." He pointed, before taking another bite of his food, and chewing deeply, his deeply sarcastic and mocking nature was always a good laugh in those best of times.

"Uh, yes, not that it concerns you." Luther continued, turning as if to address the others in the room, but of course Jaden would have none of that.

"Shouldn't you wait for Vanya to be around to talk about this." He said, and Luther actually froze. Klaus couldn't blame him too much, spoiled rotten, but disciplined like the rest of them, he had the most whiplash of them all, of course it would keep him ensnared until his dying breath.

"Vanya doesn't have any powers, she's not a part of the team." Luther answered, he was stressing to keep his temper down, Jaden was snarky and cold when he wanted to be, one part Klaus, one part Five, he'd even say. So Klaus couldn't blame how Five watched as though it was entertainment. It would be funny to watch a scrawny kid such as Jaden to beat the man hunt that was Luther, as it would end up if they continued. Dave looked at him, glaring at him to tell Jaden to stop, or Luther, or both, their telepathy wasn't that good yet.

Jaden actually snorted, from beside him, a look of self satisfaction and sadistic horror present. "What a pathetic excuse." He said, bracing his hands on the rough wood table, as he stood, he wore a galaxy shirt, and big purple boots, that looked almost like weights on his thin legs, he definitely took after him on that one. "If you even used the excuse of 'protecting her' it would have been more viable than just downright saying she wasn't apart of your team, and therefore you cant respect her." He said, perhaps the only person in the room with a strong sense of family, or at least common sense enough to break through Reginald's backwards logic.

"I respect her." Luther insisted, he was near shouting now, though it was a hesitant one, if anything. "And I do want to protect her, we need to stop the apocalypse, and she's only going to slow us down." He said, he was also standing up now, the confrontation would have been a lot more effective if he'd have been sitting at the head of the table, like he was acting, but Klaus knew Luther to well to comment on it, sadly.

"Wouldn't Dad also slow you down." The point was a shocking one, Klaus knew that, hoped that, he didn't mean any ill will over it, just pointing it out for the sense of comparison, his powers where useless compared to theirs, easily mistakable for schizophrenia and paranoia if one wasn't looking close enough. Luther's face was of shock, he wasn't angry at the statement, just shocked that the younger would bring it up probably.

"He has powers, ones that could be useful, if he didn't dumb them down with drugs." Klaus had had about enough by now, he looked at his siblings, each had just about finished their food now, besides him, Jaden, Dave and Five, who had been watching with too clear an interest so far. So Klaus may have sighed, standing up to join the conversation, defend himself for once in his life from his families treatment of him even.

"Shut up Luther." He said, glaring at his brother, Luther flinched only momentarily, staying mostly reserved. "I've been clean for months, since I met Jaden actually, and trust me, I haven't discovered any new powers." Klaus could here Ben snickering from where he sat on the counter, of course he had found away to make him go away every now and then, not like he was too bothered anymore.

"No offense Klaus." Luther began, his face held a slight sense of amusement in it, and Klaus could very almost relate. "But I dont believe you could go clean for months, even if you did time travel." There he goes again, doubting Klaus, his perceived younger brother. Klaus was the one no-one listened to, the druggy, the high, light-hearted one, except he couldn't afford to be that in Vietnam, and not even now could he let that up.

"I worked hard for my clean status, I'm still working hard in fact, I spent the first few weeks almost dying, they could barely get me out of bed, and it was war for fucks sake, I needed to be out there." He remembered those times clearly, a budding friendship with Dave, and a confused, teen he had too much in common with to let go, had to help him up, dragging his ass half the way through the jungle it felt. It was a miracle it had happened so often already that he didn't get sent straight back to America.

Jaden was giving him a worried glance again, too many times had he been the weak one, who needed assistance, it was fine, normal even when Dave did it, but it never felt right for Jaden to have to defend him so often. "Dad, come on, I didn't mean to get you into this." Jaden tried, but failed to reason with him.

*******

Dave wanted to face palm so badly, he was probably half way there already. Klaus, looked as though he was about to punch Luther in the face, for merely existing, and that probably didn't bode well to the somewhat peace they had had so far.

"Klaus, calm down, ok, I just thought-" Luther began, but Klaus was quick witted.

"You thought what, that I would be selfish enough to leave a child crying alone in the back of a tent, clutching their chest. Leave the only person I could relate too to defend themself from the onslaught of people who where so close to figuring out who he was. Maybe if it was just Dave, Luther." The name of his brother was given in such contempt that Dave thought maybe he would march around there right now. "I could afford to let myself continue to be high." Klaus softened for a second, taking the moment to wipe his eyes, and dragging some of his eyeliner along with him. "But the moment I ended up in Vietnam with Jaden on my back, it started a chain of events that were both so nice, and so painful." He clenched his fist near his face. "I made my own family, and during that time, I learnt what it was like to be loved, Luther. This isn't a family, this is a team that grew to hate eachother because we where forced under the same roof for years." He turned to Jaden, who looked, for the moment frozen, and then to Dave, who smiled, his dear beloved Klaus would do anything for them, it didn't surprise Dave, that he wanted to spread that love, he'd learnt, to his siblings. Klaus' turn back to Luther was sudden and quick, all at once he was on Luther, who just stood there, beginning to look like an idiot. "So I'm saying now, that if we don't, change now, and accept every member of our family, we could all end up without any." He glanced at his siblings, most had a look of almost guilt on them, even Five, as Dave could see, was shook by the statements that Klaus had made, how close could they have even been to be this disjointed as a family unit.

"Maybe your right." Luther said, from where he stood. "But that doesn't change the fact that Vanya doesn't have any powers, she shouldn't need to be a part of this." Jaden, had sat back down by this point, Klaus' rant had proved a good time to start eating properly, and Dave couldn't blame him for chomping down like it was no-ones business. This didn't stop Jaden from snorting, almost spitting out his mouthful of food.

"I don't believe that for two shits of a second." He said, before calmly taking another bite, the siblings, even Klaus, he noted, all looked at Jaden questioningly. He shrugged calmly, "All of you have powers of some sort, you where all born from the same event, Reginald must have adopted her for a reason." He said, he opened his eyes, pointing at them as he continued, "You have to look at this from an outside perspective, he was smart, he would know which children where born from the event which created you, and which where born naturally." He said, as he looked at his now empty plate. Dave saw Five sitting there, he looked in actual contemplation, Dave could tell the man was smart, if Klaus was to be believed, he had to be to control his powers, so maybe he could give a logical answer to this.

"That's actually not as far fetched as it sounds." Five said, he teleported next to Jaden, shocking him quite a bit. He grabbed the other and portaled to who knows where. Dave was in shock after that, it seemed out of character for the smallest of the siblings, though there must have been a reason for it.

"Did Five just kidnap Jaden?" Klaus asked, also apparently in shock, and there was just something about that sentence that set alarms off in Dave's head.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so, just so you know, I have a lot of this fic planned out, at least loosely, while giving me enough freedom to write most things I want in. Also I can assure you that, besides maybe one or two other, this fic is not centered on other fandoms, and most of the universes I use will be of my own creation, that doesn't mean I'll be writing in my original stories, at least not as major characters. Also might make a sort of encyclopedia side book later, you'll see it when it happens. This is all subject to change.  
> Also thank you for the kudos and hits, its people like you who make me really excited to post the next chapter.


	5. Chapter 4 - secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets are what keep the Hargreeves family apart, but could they also be what brings them together?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens. Like really thickens, I just finished chapter 6, and my oh my is it going to be a doosy. I'm currently reading the comics, and want to incorporate that into some of things in my fic, but we'll see, I don't want to isolate some of the few people who read this.

Jay was frown completely off guard being thrown into what looked like Five's secret hideout. There was a bunch of crazed equation scribbles on the walls and a bed, so maybe it was just his bedroom. Five immediately went to start wiping off the scribbles and make room for whatever he was probably going to be writing next.

"Um, what are we doing here." Jaden asked, he was actually on Five's bed, but the other male was too busy wiping the his scribbles off his walls to pay attention to the others place in his room.

"You, seem to have changed the equation of this timeline, something about this timeline just seems wrong." Five said, as he moved to a different wall. "What exactly are your powers. Klaus mentioned dimension travelling." He said, speeding up his scrubbing.

"Well I'd more call it universe travelling, or switching between timelines, my portals are actually more like rips in space time, allowing me to travel between any place in this time, but since time is a concept but also a constant, time can travel differently, meaning in some worlds I age slower than others in comparison to other dimensions." Jaden explained, or tried to, he knew Five was smart but this was stuff outside of even his jurisdiction to know. Five slowed his wiping, and eventually stopped portalling to his bedside cabinet and grabbing a marker, before portalling back to restart his equations.

"So if your not from this timeline, then there is theoretically another timeline where you don't show up. What have you done ever since you got here, from the beginning." Five said, he started to scribble numbers.

"Um, lets see, I got Klaus out of his bonds and jumped on his back once he opened his briefcase, then, shit I cant remember all of 10 months, even I'm not that good." Five turned to look at him, annoyed look on his face and all.

"The give me the footnotes, what have you changed, what couldn't have happened if you weren't there." Jaden thought for a second, before continuing.

"Ok, I caused Klaus to dedicate stop taking drugs, to care for me during Vietnam. I may have saved Dave from imminent death, since Klaus wasn't telling him anything about his powers, or here until I encouraged him too. I brought them back here. I didn't give you the case, but I imagine if Dave had died, Klaus would have come back here and destroyed it, or maybe he would have, even if Dave survived." While he was talking, Five continuously wrote on the wall, the equation was a lot different than it was before.

*******

Hazel had just gotten a note to kill cha-cha, when a second one came through, though this one was different. Why would he be given two separate ones, if he needed to kill both, why wouldn't they just put both people on one piece. Hazel picked up the piece of paper, it read 'exterminate Jaden Katz-Hargreeves.' Now he wasn't someone to not look up on who they where killing, but he had nothing on this person, this Jaden had never shown up on any of their files, why would they suddenly show up now.

Cha-cha re-entered the building, looking at Hazel pretty suspiciously "What you got there?" She asked, her completely devoted mindset not even picking up on the fact he was holding hits. Hazel passed them both to Cha-cha, no point hiding something so suspicious. "The fuck." She said, rereading them. She looked back at him. "Why would they send you after me, and this Jaden person." It looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn't she just handed both pieces of paper back to him. "I'm getting to the bottom of this." And so Cha-cha left in a fury, stomping out of the room, and Hazel couldn't blame her really. He looked back at the pieces of paper, curiously, Jaden Katz-Hargreeves, maybe he had seen that name before.

An early mission of his, he hadn't been able to complete, no matter how hard he'd tried, he hadn't been able to kill him, he'd been super powered like the rest of those Hargreeves freaks, though Hazel hadn't remembered them from the seventh ones book. He tried to roll his mind back to the assignment, the dead white look in the child's eyes, they sideways fade of blue to purple, the creepy smile on his face as the bullets just went right through him, or he supposed they did, he never found any of them. They'd gotten an entire team on the kid after that, but no-one had been able to kill him, it was one of the few things he doubted he'd ever understand.

*******

Jaden and Five stood staring at the wall, a completed equation sat upon it, or as close as they could get, there was something missing from it, a piece of the timeline neither could figure out was missing. Jaden turned to his uncle in confusion "You sure this is correct? I mean, there are a lot numbers here, you could have messed up a digit or something." Jaden had no clue what he was talking about, but he hoped that whatever it was, it wouldn't upset Five too much.

This turned out to be the wrong response, from the annoyed look on Five's face when he eventually looked back to his apparent partner in crime. There was an incredible amount of teleportation going on between Jaden's question and Five's answer but eventually he stopped to continue writing something on a particularly empty wall. "Do you think I'd mess something as important as this up, the state of the timeline is at stake, you must have messed something up somewhere." He said, not bothering to turn to look at his nephew. Jaden wouldn't admit how much that hurt him inside, he just hoped that Five didn't mean it that harshly when he'd thought of it. But the other didn't object when Jaden walked out into the creaky hallway outside.

Down the hall, Allison was looking into Vanya's room. There was a look on her face, that just, told Jaden, something was wrong. "Whats wrong Allison?" He asked, as he walked towards her, causing her to sharply turn towards him, before she softened back up, he died blonde hair was ruffled, more than usual it seemed, and she looked into the plain, almost stark room, so solemnly, that one would think Vanya had died in it.

"I was just thinking about what you said at dinner." She said, before standing up properly, "and it reminded me of a time when dad asked me to do something so strange, I didn't understand it until now." Jaden cocked his head, the woman could manipulate people through her voice, he knew that, when Klaus had started speaking about his family, he'd just about spilled everything there was to know, whether that be from the book, that Vanya had wrote, or from after, learning from the others, and he'd listened with plain interest.

"He asked me to tell Vanya, she was normal." Then, something clicked, him and Five had talked about Vanya possibly causing the apocalypse briefly, it made sense, she wasn't with the others, not even covered in rubble streets away, and she'd known the apocalypse was happening, but Five had quickly written her off as being too timid and nice to have done it. Jaden began to go into a state between panic and excitement, adrenaline clearly flushing through his system.

"Wait, wait, wait, so Vanya did have powers, and you told her she didn't, and they just went away?" He asked, this was good, it was something, this could be the factor, he just needed to know what these mysterious powers were.

"I don't know, but I think that was around the time she started taking her anxiety medication." Allison said, she was holding her arms pretty tightly "God, she could have been one of us." She started to break down, collapsing to her knees as she began to sob, "And I took that away from her." Her sentence was broken inbetween cries and sobs, and Jaden could only feel sympathy for his Aunts, both of them, Allison was trying her best to reconnect to a family she'd been forced to close to connect to, and Vanya had a piece of her taken away for one reason or another. This didn't mean Jaden knew how to deal well with his Aunt Allison's crying though, he'd not been the one to talk comforting words to Klaus when he inevitably had a nightmare, or when any of them began to mourn for dead friends, he'd just needed to be there, he knew what they where going through, but this was entirely new ground for him.

He ended up just backing away, slowly, "Look Aunt Allison, I need to tell this to Five, we've been working on our apocalypse theories, and I think this could help, but uh, go find, my dad, or someone, anyone else from our family, please." He'd ended up skidding down the hall after that, leaving a fairly shocked Allison on the floor, though she didn't stay there long.

*******

Allison gripped the door frames as she walked down the corridor. It didn't take long to find out which room was now Dave's, on account of the childish giggling coming from the room. She stood outside for a minute, just listening to the two men talk.

"And that's why you shouldn't put knives in a blender." Klaus said, she cringed away for a second, slight confusion on her face, until she remembered that this was the same brother who stole their mom's heels, and Allison's old skirts, that should probably be burned already.

"You really thought that would be a good idea?" Dave answered back, laughing in a way no member of this house had ever done, besides maybe Klaus, when he was too high to take anything seriously, she wondered if she'd miss that Klaus.

"Hey, I was five, You shouldn't let five-year-olds near knives in the first place, let alone throwing them, so of course I got curious as to what I could do with them." Klaus answered, joyfully, he might be the only one in this family, to be able to find amusement in his past, he'd certainly given plenty to them in their earlier years, some of the only good memories they had, were Klaus doing something funny, and usually getting in trouble for it.

Allison took this moment to knock on the door, causing the laughing to stop, and oh how she missed it already. It took a few minutes, but Dave answered the door, and looked at Allison curiously. "Is something wrong Allison, you look like you're upset." Allison gave a knowing smile, wiping the tears from her face. Klaus took this moment to peak around his boyfriend, and to look at his sister, he looked concerned.

"I got a recommendation from your son, to speak to Klaus about something." She explained, hoping he got the hint.

"Oh." Dave said, looking back to Klaus, who just waved him off, was he wearing haribo rings?

"We'll be fine Dave." Klaus said, before taking a bite of what was definitely a haribo ring.

Dave moved out of the way to let Allison in "Well if your sure." He said, looking critically at the other male.

"Dave." Klaus said pointedly, "I think I can handle one of my siblings, especially Allison, she's one of the better of us." He said. Next to him, there was a tub of rings, haribo ones, and it didn't surprise her in the least, in fact she took one and began to eat it, maybe it would help calm her nerves a little.

"Ok, I'll get us some coffee then." Dave said, walking out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"Thank you." Klaus called, just before the door closed completely, before turning to Allison "So what has you, so riled up this fine evening 'ey?" He asked leaning back against the wall behind him, and taking another bite, from a separate ring.

"I was thinking about earlier." She started, taking another ring from the box, though she didn't eat it yet. "When Jay showed up, asking what was wrong, and-" She started to choke up again, not wanting to have to say it to another sibling. "And I think Vanya had a power." She said. She'd looked down at some point, started playing with the candy ring in her hands, and she only looked up when she felt Klaus shift a bit. When she looked up, Klaus was looking away from her. She didn't want to speak anymore, so she clenched her hands in annoyance, maybe this wasn't a good idea after all.

"That would explain a lot." Klaus began, and Allison was shocked at this, what was he getting at. When he looked at her, he answered "Didn't you ever think she was too normal." He said, looking back at her now, so he'd thought about this too then. "She was averagely smart, no-one ever noticed her in a crowd, I mean, even now, she has just too much of a normal life, she even had an average seat in her orchestra." He explained "I mean you compare that too everyone else in our family, Luther being on the moon, Diego the povo batman, you the superstar, me the high one, Five the fucking time traveler, and Ben the deceased one. I mean, how is it, that someone raised by Reginald fucking Hargreeves, ends up living in a normal apartment, with a normal job, it's impossible Ally" Even she could give him this, it did seem impossible. "And being normal, it hurts her in a way, and it's more than just jealousy, more than just expectation, it's like it's in our genetic code to be abnormal, I mean even Jaden, who was raised normally, couldn't escape a life of adventure and uncertainty." klaus shrugged, he reached into the tub of rings and grabbed a hand full of the candy, before bringing his hands to his face, and eating almost all of them at once. It wasn't a pretty site, but Allison guessed that this was just Kluas' way of dealing with this conversation. "So what clued you in." Klaus said, and there it was. Allison was vaguely aware of the blush spreading across her cheeks at the thought.

"I remembered that dad made me tell Vanya she was normal." She repeated, it came out quick, in a jumble of words she could only hope Klaus could untangle. There was a shocked look on Klaus face for a second, before it faded back into a more chill expression, though it was more quizzical now.

"So, that's it then, makes sense I guess." Klaus said, looking into his hands at the remaining sugary treats, "I know you wouldn't do that if you knew exactly what was going on, so how old where we, two, three." Klaus said, he picked up on of the remaining haribos and put it in his mouth, chewing it more animatedly than usual. Allison did a haphazard shrug in response, but stayed quiet, she didn't really have anything else to say to him right now.

*******

Klaus sat in silence, waiting for Allison to speak, he'd never been that close to the girls of their family, but this was something completely new. Allison didn't even seem to notice when Dave actually returned with coffee, the reliable man. He gave Klaus a concerned look, but Klaus motioned him to enter none the less, no use in this staying a secret after all. The coffee was placed on top of a set of draws near the foot of the bed, before the man elegantly walked over to wrap an arm around Klaus shoulder.

"Whats happened?" Dave whispered into Klaus' ear softly, not that Klaus could explain it that well in the first place.

"My dear sister Allison, appears to have accidentally caused my my other sister a lot of pain." Klaus whispered back, though he failed in not getting Allison's attention. She looked something between surprised, and offended for a second. "Oh don't get too twisted, sister dear, I let him in." He explained, "And he has much better emotional function, than the rest of us combined, even with Jaden involved." Klaus reasons. Allison just stands up, looking almost as awkward meek as a school girl, and the thought puts an almost inappropriate smile on his face, though he kept it as sorrowful as he could for now.

"I should go." She says, turning to leave the room, before Dave calls out to her.

"You don't need to leave Allison, I don't exactly get all this power stuff, but I know siblings well enough to know you shouldn't run away from this." He makes his way to sit next to Klaus, who smiles at him as he crawls over him, and to the tub of rings, taking a greedy handful of them. "Actually, you shouldn't run from this in general." He said, never fully moving off of Klaus' lap, and just making himself comfortably on him. Allison seemed to be stuck in the doorway, half between walking and walking in.

"Last time I used my power on someone I cared about." She started choking up again, she gripped the door frame tightly, and Klaus could see her perfectly manicured nails cracking from the strain. He was ashamed to say that hurt more than just a little, he had a good respect for those nails god damnit. "she was taken away from me." Claire, no doubt about it. He wasn't stupid, every now and then he'd get a hold of a computer, and look up Allison, the only sibling besides Diego that had any sort of new coverage post the age of the academy.

"Well that's Vanya's decision, not mine." Klaus said, he tried to keep it casual, he was now looking at his own, distressed nails, that really needed that manicure. God he hated being such a dick right now.

Allison left after that, leaving Klaus and Dave to their sweets, and sweet thoughts. "You where totally looking at her nails." Dave said, oh the high school gossip they'd shared already.

"Oh hell yes Dave, it's called a manicure, and I need one." Being male did not mean one had to sacrifice fashion, something that Dave had yet to get a proper grasp of. "But I do feel for her." Klaus said,beginning to play with the curls of Dave's hair now "It wasn't her fault." Dave just looked at him with empathy filled eyes, so cute that he couldn't ignore them if he tried. He ended up snorting before reaching to encapsulate Dave in a real hug.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it sad that I'm really happy to have a ruffly 1/21 kudos to hits ratio? I don't think it is. So thank you to the seven people who have kudosed and five who've subscribed to this story. And just people who've read in general.


	6. chapter 5 - the beginning of our demise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The secrets are dropping like flies and the academy can scramble to try and piece them together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so sorry this took a bit longer to get out, I ended up spending a lot of last night in a call with my friends. I'm trying out Grammarly now, just in time to figure out how the spellcheck works in my writing programme, aka, just barely, so if there's a slight style change, it's because of that. Chapters will probably be coming out slower for the next, about a month, since exams are here, yay. Anyway, this is where things really start to change, and I'm really excited to post the next chapter.

There was an interesting power dynamic shift going on in the Hargreeves residence, Five had observed. When he'd first arrived, he'd expected everyone to go off and do their own thing, besides from the few family meetings that Luther could pull out of his ass, and get away with. But now things where changing, Jaden seemed to have some sort of command over them, not through a power of his, but through a genuine talent to organize things. He was currently walking down a random corridor with the other teen bodied male, talking about their findings from the night before, and oh how they'd surprised him.

"-so Reginald must have hidden her power from you all your lives, and gods, if it was that powerful, I fear for you all once we get this sorted out." He may or may not have blanked out on that first part, something between extremely powerful and, Reginald hiding Vanya's power from them even when they were young. "I mean." Jaden continued, "I've thought about it, and the higher the number the more powerful, or at least uncontrollable the power, I mean, Luther's was simple, controllable, Diego's might get out hand, sure, but it's simple. Allison's can have lasting damage if misused, but it's activated under very specific circumstances. Dad's has mentally scarred him and caused him to ruin his life, you got lost in the future and became an assassin, controllable, but only with a lot of practice. Uncle Ben died because of his power." He was beginning to get slightly exasperated, "So I can only imagine the damage Vanya could-" He stopped, wide-eyed and sweating, Five could feel it too. "Oh, Vanya," Jaden whispered. That was when Five decided to call a meeting.

*******

Klaus sat, frightened in a way, on the couch, splayed across it, while everyone else was in some sort of self decreed place. The aura given off was that of a world war two evacuation, described by the teen that sat on the arm of the same couch. Dave had elected to make coffees, and Klaus couldn't say he blamed the poor man, he wasn't used to this overly serious attitude and hadn't left the house in about two days, and they were running out of time. They were actually due to go shopping today, agreed upon by both them and Jaden, but right now they could probably only hope Amazon came through.

Five marched up, onto the bar that had been cleared by Klaus' ever fanciful son, and over commanding brother, looking down at the family before him. Everyone but Vanya was here and considering Jaden was here, it was for good reason. Luther seemed to be the most annoyed to be here, probably because he didn't call this meeting, and didn't have a lead this time, he also looked way more ruffled than usual, Klaus could only guess that he got out last night, and ran around like a rabid dog.

Five began, pacing back and forth on the counter, only he could do it, because of his incredibly small hight, but he was also the only one who could pull off the almost militarised look, because of his serious attitude, and adorable, but strict, schoolboy attire. Jaden took that moment to practically skip over to him, and the two seemed to get into a surprisingly normal conversation, before Jaden nodded and retook his seat on the arm of the couch, giving Klaus a solemn smile as he did so, this was not going to be good. "We found out who causes the apocalypse." Five said, matter of factly, catching everyone's attention quickly.

"Who is it," Luther said, he moved slightly from his place leaning against the wall, he couldn't exactly sit down very well with his big ape body.

"Vanya." Five said. It almost seemed impossible how shocked everyone else was, that being Diego, Luther, and even Ben.

"She must be jealous, that she doesn't have a power." Luther assumed, poor, sweet Vanya, being jealous? He couldn't see it, the poor cupcake didn't seem to have it in her to be like that. Klaus looked at Allison, he remembered what she said last night, and she didn't exactly look in the best shape today, so he assumed she remembered too.

"No, she does," Allison said weakly opposing their dear, entitled brother.

Luther looked at her incredulously, "What do you mean." He said, he didn't move, thank god, he might bring the house down, but he did give Allison a form of the evil eye he did not respect.

"No," Klaus said, sitting up, and looking at Luther like he was in the wrong, and he kind of was. "You don't need to say it, Allison, not to him." He couldn't see her face, but he hoped she at least accepted his stance on this, she did not need this idiot making her feel worse for a mistake she could barely even remember, or god forbid it was their dads' fault. She seemed to accept this, as a few minutes went by without anyone adding anything, even Five seemed to just let this conversation fester until Dave came in with the hot drinks.

"Is this a bad time." He said, he had about three drinks with him, out of the seven in total there were in total.

Jaden gave her dad a knowing smirk "Let's be honest, there's never a good time." Dave smiled at that and started to walk in with the drinks, Mom then came in with the next set, and finally, Dave went to grab his own from the kitchen. After that, the mood was lighter, with everyone too distracting with their drinks to continue to complain to each other. It was like a competition to see who had the most emotional baggage around here, and no-one was winning.

"Back to the point." Five continued, surprisingly content now that he'd had some actually good coffee. Placing carefully on the corner of the bar, oh the audacity he had. "Vanya has powers, and Jaden has pointed out." He gestured to Jaden, who was listening quite intently, despite looking at his claws. "Our powers get more destructive the higher the number, meaning since Ben died." He stopped for a second, Ben, who was sat on a random set of drawers just looking oh so stern, seemed to be surprised at the mere mention of him, from their well, he guessed older brother, now. "Vanya's powers would theoretically be so uncontrollable, that it can kill other people." He continued. There were very few disagreements, too this logic, as Klaus seemed to notice, and more surprise that Five didn't instantly take all the credit, but then again since he'd voiced the opinions of not even half a mannequin, it might not be, that, surprising.

Luther seemed to disagree with something though, as he seemed to be quite on edge. "Ben died because we pushed him too far, he had them under control." Luther pointed out, though that did not go down well with Ben himself.

"Tell him he's a liar Klaus, tell him, what they did to me" Oh how Ben seethed, he jumped off the cabinet and walked over to Luther, began gesturing at him even, whatever made him feel better in the moment though.

"Luther, he didn't have control," Klaus said solemnly, he'd never told anyone this, how close he'd been to Ben, for the other to tell him this. "He used to tell me that the things in his chest, they weren't part of him Luther, they were their own separate entities, they killed him, tore him apart, because he didn't want to deal with him anymore." He said, they may have all been there on that day, but that didn't mean they all understood what they saw.

"I thought he could communicate with them, or something." Luther reasoned, he looked horrified, poor guy probably didn't realize how much he'd hurt their brother by saying it.

"Only as much as you can communicate with a dog." He stated. He felt Dave put a hand on his shoulder and leaned into him. It was hard to keep secrets like this, he was just relieved it was off his chest now. Luther calmed down, gained a sorrowful look on his face as well, must have blamed himself for it.

*******

Jaden had been sitting quietly throughout the entire endeavor, no point in getting involved in everything this family had to deal with, otherwise he'd never bloody sleep, he was not their therapist, and he could not degrade himself to that level to please them. He looked back over at Five, who was standing there, drinking his coffee, and also waiting for the dust to settle on this conversation. He sighed, and looked at his dad, and then cleared his throat as loud as he could. "The point of this meeting is so we can find out what Vanya's powers are, and most importantly how to help her, and not dig up the past." Luther, at this point, looked more like a wounded puppy than a terrifying ape, Jaden could only deduce that they'd used the wrong DNA on accident when making him, part animal. "Also the fact that she could very well be used as a tool, instead of being the instigator," Jaden said, deduction always won out over ignorance and unquestioning belief, as long as you had enough details. Luther looked at him, though never quite made eye contact, a sign of submission on his part.

"And you know this how?" Diego surprisingly was the one to ask. Jaden looked over to where he was he was, playing with his knives, with one balancing on his finger in perfect precision.

"We don't, not for sure, but recent evidence." He looked slightly at Allison, who looked away, a slight blush covering her cheeks, poor girl. "Has suggested, that Vanya may have powers. And since, let's be honest, no-one imagines she's actually able to destroy the entire world, of her own accord. I." He emphasizes to himself, giving a slightly annoyed, and not suttle in any way look at Five, before continuing "Personally believe, she may be manipulated into doing so." Allison perked up slightly. Jaden didn't want to say she was going to reveal her secret, but he could see she had something to share. "Allison." He said, to which she turned to look at him, and he could see the trace line of worry on her face, so he just gave her a soft smile. "Do you have something to share." Allison softened up at that, and he watched intently as she removed herself from her metaphorical turtle shell.

"I saw Vanya's new, friend, or boyfriend, I don't really know anymore, in her apartment the other day, he was acting shifty and said he was just dropping off his keys, but I don't believe him, somethings up with him, I can feel it, and then I researched him, and he just appeared one day." She said. She was getting more anxious as she said it. "Could he be the one to manipulate her?" She asked. Jaden wasn't shocked, he hadn't much interaction with him, but he remembered that look in his eyes. He looked over at Five who had a piece of paper in his hands.

"Something you'd like to share Five." He says, and being the instigator of this conversation was so fun, he should get one of those swivel chairs for this. Five looked up, his usual, unreadable, serious expression on his face, though it seemed to contain a bit of a questioning expression.

"When I was with the commission I managed to get this piece of paper with the name Harold Jenkins on it, I didn't manage to do research on him yesterday, but he's supposed to help bring the apocalypse." He said, and Jaden could tell there was at least some sort of worry in his tone, he recognized it as a sort of warriors worry, hard to pick out if you didn't know it, but difficult to miss if you did. "But now, I'm not entirely sure it isn't a red herring." Jaden walked over to Five and took the piece of paper from Five, who willingly gave it to him, and he gave it a once over. Protect Harold Jenkins, he thought about it.

"I can go research this if you want, just quickly, I need a break from all your whining anyway," He said looking over the whole group. Five gave him a challenging look.

"I got it in the first place, besides, you don't even know where to look for information." He looked down at the slip again.

"I mean, you're not wrong." He said, comically, "but you've only been back here for a few days, and weren't you camping out in a van for a lot of that time?" He questioned, he could see the way Five's eyes flickered in Klaus' direction in annoyance, but didn't care to follow, it wasn't his business what his dad told him, and what he didn't. Jaden looked at Allison, getting an idea "Allison." He said, walking up to her. She looked at him intently, he just passed her the piece of paper. "I'm sure you know what to do." She nodded in response. "Just don't do anything rash, ok, if this guy does do something to cause the apocalypse, he could be dangerous." He said, before looking over at Diego, "Why don't you go see if you can find Vanya, just don't be too harsh with her, ok, she probably doesn't know she has powers yet." He then looked back at her dads, they had some basic clothes shopping to do.

*******

Hazel and Cha-cha could not find any news on a Jaden Nixen, no matter how hard they searched, they'd gone from basic documents to wandering and loitering in any place necessary to pick up gossip, to even asking people about them, worst thing was, that Jaden was a gender fluid name, so they could be anyone. They were wandering around a general clothes shop when they saw the two men and a teen enter.

"Hey, Cha-cha," Hazel said, from where he was sat eating a doughnut he'd picked up on the way there.

"What is it this time Hazel," Cha-cha said, she'd seemed a bit moodier than usual that day, but it wasn't totally their fault, they'd been at this for an entire day, with no leads whatsoever.

"Isn't that the brother we tortured," Hazel said, gesturing to the three men. Cha-cha gave them a good look before her eyes went wide.

"It is, he has our briefcase, the damn fucker." She said, though she was quieter now. Hazel glanced at them again, they all looked out of place, Vietnam war clothes on both of the other two boys with him.

"Seems to have picked up a couple of lads from the Vietnam war too." He added. It was weird, because, despite the fact that two of them were severely out of their timezone, they seemed, happy, the shorter of the three was the happiest though, there was a sort of, youthful cheer to him that he hadn't seen in so long.

"Great, even more of a mess we have to clean up," Cha-cha said. Hazel could have almost sworn that the teen looked familiar, and something about him just made him feel uncomfortable, like he was the one being watched, instead of the other way around.

"How about we research these two," Hazel said gesturing to them, he looked back at Cha-cha, who looked to at least some point, she agreed.

"One of them could be our guy." Cha-cha deducted, before standing up dramatically. Hazel followed suit, though, with less anger than his partner, he didn't feel like he had it in him anymore. As they walked out of the building, he looked back at the three and saw the teen looking at him, or more staring, there wasn't a particularly mean look on his face, just a questioning one before he turned around to address the adults he was with.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who's given this story a chance so far, I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea. Just so you know I have a playlist for Jaden here https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1WGIhf7EI7kIwqFCA3lom9. Most of the songs won't make sense yet though, I've barely touched the surface with this story.


	7. chapter 6 - tensions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans start to finally go into motion, but things can never run smoothly with the Hargreeves family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, guess whos back for a bit. I have a week off from exams and started writing the eighth chapter already. So expect another two-week hiatus after the next week, afterward, it will depend on how quickly I write. I've been in a weird place with the fandom recently, just hovering around, waiting for the next season to come out in what will probably be over a years time. It doesn't mean I don't have ideas for side fics and stuff, but I can't really do that until I've at least finished this first arc.

 

Allison had been quick to research Harold Jenkins, and found what she had feared could be the case. The image on her screen, the face she didn't want to believe, at least to some part was evil, Leonard. She was quick to bring out her phone and call Diego, as she walked out of the library, as she walked past though, she caught a glimpse of two familiar shapes. Two people in business attire huddled around a computer, she couldn't tell from where she was what they were searching, but they gave her an odd sort of, familiar chill, but she continued on.

"Yeah, did you find something." Diego finally answered. But Allison took a moment to consider what she would say. She was soon walking at a quick pace down the road towards the mansion, in her high heels, no-one noticed her thank god, not like she would have stopped right now.

"This Harold Jenkins is Vanya's boyfriend, he was convicted for the murder of his father." She said, simply and quickly, as she dogged through the river of heads that flowed past her. Diego didn't answer for a few minutes, there were noises in the background, and Five was the one to answer.

"We've yet to locate Vanya, she's not at her house, or at this Leonard's, are there any other places they could have gone." Allison thought for a second, where could she have gone. She hadn't checked for any sort of residences for Harold and felt stupid for it.

"I don't know, have you found anything else, that we could do something with," Allison said, she was home now, and walked through the gate, not that she planned on staying long, she was going to regroup with the others after she made sure Klaus and Jaden were up to date on everything, they'd found so far.

"Diego just found a book hidden under a bed." There was a pause and the sound of movement, the next sentence was a little quieter, "That's dad's journal." Allison's eyes widened, as she walked through the doors and collapsed against the closest wall to her. "Fuck, into the attic." The phone cut off after that, no goodbye, no nothing, just a sentence that put Allison on edge as she walked further into the house. She put her phone back in her pocket, and walked in, bored, for a second, of what to do now.

On a whim, she picked up the house phone and noticed there was one voice message.

"Hey, it's Vanya, I just wanted to mention I'm going to Leonard's grandmother's house, with him for a few days. He says it should help me clear my mind for my performance, I'll be coming back the day before though, I'll visit to drop your tickets off then." The message ended, she sounded more confident, and Allison almost wanted to cry for her on that. But the fact that she'd needed Leonard in her life to do that, shouldn't have been needed. She put the phone back down, and placed her forehead against the wall, and tried to remember if there was some sort of location set for this guys grandmother. She didn't even hear when the front door opened, and Klaus, Dave, and Jaden walked in.

"Is there something wrong Allison?" Dave said, and Allison looked up at them. She knew her face looked grim, a reminder that she needed to focus on helping her sister. So for her sake, she tried to think of where to start.

*******

Five teleported into the house with ease, while Diego and Luther broke down the door, completely. He almost felt sorry for the door, having to deal with all that dead weight pushing into it, even if only for a second. "Wow, great job, I'm sure no-one will notice your breaking and entering if they walk past, will they." Five said sarcastically.

"Let's just get this over with, and find Vanya," Luther said, annoyed as he dusted off some rubble that had fallen when they'd taken the door, off its hinges. Five just shook his head, as Luther went to start checking the rooms, and Diego got off the floor, rubbing his back, before following.

Five teleported into the living room, and started to take the cushions off of the couch, one could never be too sure in these situations. When that proved fruitless, he started to check the shelves, and, an actual god damn tv. He'd never actually seen a working one before, besides in passing, car trips, and the sort. This caused him to stare at it for a good few seconds before he actually decided to turn it on and see what it was like. Just as he'd expected, a full color, and thin, like those in the apocalypse that weren't completely destroyed. On the screen, there was a news channel, plowing out some irrelevant garbage, if he was Luther or Reginald, he would have thought it a distraction, instead, he thought it was a waste of humanity.

After a while, with the tv still on, he'd practically torn the place to shreds, cushions everywhere, tables flipped, and every switch and socket messed with, it was a wonder most things where still intact, sadly those cushions did not like him feeling for anything in them, and decided to irreparably tear themselves open, oh well. In the distance, he Diego talking to someone, he guessed it was someone on the phone, considering that Luther was too loud for his own good recently. He walked to what looked to be the master bedroom, it wasn't the most excitedly decorated, but it certainly had some sort of charm to it, he guessed, to someone maybe. Diego turned to face him, and removed the phone from his ear to talk to Five, "Leonard is Harold, convicted murderer, homicide." He simply said, and Five wanted to sigh, of course, he was, nothing was ever easy these days, where they. He held out his hand for the phone and was answered with a raised eyebrow from Diego.

"We don't have time for this Diego, give me the phone." After a few minutes, Diego realized that he couldn't get manners from him and handed the phone to Five, who proceeded to say "We've yet to locate Vanya, she's not at her house, or at this Leonard's, are there any other places they could have gone." They'd just checked the apartment before they came here, no point really, she took everything she'd need for a short trip, including her violin, presumably to practice for her big performance in a few days. In the background, Diego rolled his eyes, before he continued his own search, but he was a little more considerate of other peoples things as if it would be any use if they were all dead because of it.

"I don't know, have you found anything else, that we could do something with," Allison answered, as much as she'd been useful to get this guys criminal record, if she couldn't give them any more info, she wasn't doing a good enough job. Five returned his attention to Diego who had reached under the bed and pulled out a box.

"Diego just found a book hidden under a bed." Five said to Allison, how funny, he was giving a running commentary all of a sudden. A shadow appeared behind him, and he turned to see Luther, watching Diego as he opened the box and pulled out a book. Five took a step closer and looked at the initials. RH, and then it dawned on him. "That's dad's journal." He said, he reached out, and grabbed it from Diego's hands, and started to flip through the pages, this could be useful to find out Vanya's powers. Just then, he heard the sound of a car pulling up in the drive and he was sure his eyes dilated for a second there. "Fuck, into the attic." He said, in a hushed tone, before ending the call, he had forgotten he was still in and pocketing the phone. The three of them were quick to open the hatch to the attic, and Five heard a distant.

"The fuck." Oh, they were in trouble. He quietly pushed the two up the ladder, though there was the problem of Luther's torso, so it took a lot more of a push, and the plaster around it cracked and began to fall off from the pressure. "Shit shit shit." He heard, as what sounded very much like Leonard came rushing up the stairs.

As soon as they were up, in the attic, Five motioned towards the window, as he held the hatch closed, better to be safe than sorry. Though they didn't move, and Five turned to see the two silently looking at a wrapped body, it was a young woman, and he tried his best to commit the face to memory, but he realized that Leonard had gone quiet.

It came suddenly, the tug to try and open the latch forcefully, this shocked Diego and Luther to go to the window. Five started to focus fully on keeping the latch closed for as long as possible, sadly by every passing second, it was getting more, and more difficult to keep it closed. Diego put his hand on Five's shoulder and picked up the journal from next to where Five sat and tucked it under his arm. In the momentary lapse of judgment, one of Harold's hands managed to slip between the latch and grasp onto Five's leg, causing him to try and kick the disgusting appendage off of him.

"I've got you." They heard from the floor beneath. "You're going to regret breaking into my house you fucker." He didn't get to continue though, as Diego took his monologue time to stab him in the hand, which he pulled back in pain. "Fuck." Diego took this time to go to the window, which had been cut from its frame somehow and jumped out, and down to the car, with the journal.

Five let go of the latch and walked back to the young woman's body, her face was uncovered now, so Five took out Diego's phone and quickly snapped a picture of the woman's face. At that point, the latch was pulled down, and Five pushed through reality, and into the car he'd come in, taking the driver's seat. Diego and Luther were strapping themselves in, when Five made a quick break for it, turning around the closest corner, and out of the neighborhood.

*******

Jaden had a weird feeling on their journey home from the store. It had something to do with the man he'd seen before, he'd been looking straight at Jaden, he wasn't really familiar, but he still felt like he knew him. They'd opted to take an uber home, something Jaden, like Dave, had never done before.

"Dad, where did you even get the money for this trip?" Jaden said, he held multiple bags on his lap, most of the clothes were his, but some of them were Dave's or Klaus'. Speaking of his dad, he gave a cheeky grin in response and put a finger to his lips.

"Shhh, Jaden, I have my secrets." Drug money then. Jaden rolled his eyes, which got a laugh from Klaus, and an endearing smile from Dave. Dad leaned into Dave's shoulder, and relaxed.

"Well, wherever it's from, I'm just glad we got to do this, and as a family too." Dave was always soo sentimental, and it made Jaden give a childish sort of grin at the older man, who ruffled his already scraggly, shoulder-length hair.

They didn't speak much for the rest of the journey, but they didn't need too, instead they just basked in the feeling of calmness, despite the extra set of eyes that curiously landed on the family from time to time throughout. When they got back, Jaden was tempted to open a portal straight to his room, but the bags weren't that heavy. There were a few more bags in the back of the car, which Klaus and Dave were getting out. "I'm gonna go ahead." He said, walking into the gate, leaving it just open, so they could get all the bags through. He didn't get a response and didn't need to, as he walked up the steps and opened the door to see Allison resting her head on the phone. Jaden turned to see Klaus waving off the uber before Dave and Klaus walked up the steps as well.

"Is there something wrong Allison?" Dave asked, worriedly, both of them had worried looks on there faces as Allison turned to face them, she looked sad - and scared. Klaus was the first one to move, putting down his bags and walking over to put his arms around her, and led her towards the living room.

"Allison talk to us, what's wrong." He said as he walked with her, he looked back to them, giving them a look of worry, of his own, as he went out of view. Jaden sighed and did a slicing motion with his hand,  which opened a portal, much to Dave's surprise, he then proceeded to throw all the bags in the vicinity into the portal and began to follow Klaus, keeping it open just in case there were any more bags to go in.

Dave didn't follow as Jaden walked in to see Allison sitting on the sofa, with Klaus next to her. "Papas moving the bags." He said, as he walked over and sat on the bar table, that was still cleared from this morning.

As soon as Dave walked in, he took a seat, on the opposite sofa, and waited for Allison to talk, they all did.

"Vanya's at Leonard's grandmother's." She began slowly, unsure of what to say. Jaden leaned forwards, listening carefully. "Leonard is Harold, and he had dad's journal." She continued, "Five, Diego and Luther were there, but I think he came back, or something, Five sounded in a hurry, and he cut off the call, and I don't know." She said, hurriedly, and she put her face in her hands at the end of it, rubbing her temples, and sighing into them. "I hope they're ok." She finished finally.

"So it wasn't a red herring then," Jaden said, jumping off the bar, and walking over to the sofas. "It's something, would be even better if we had the journal though." Klaus took Allison into his arms again and began to give her a hug, while Dave sat opposite them in contemplation.

Grace walked in, holding two steaming mugs "I thought you might like some coffee." She said, passing one cup to Allison, and another to Klaus, before leaving to presumably get the other two. Jaden took the moment to sit on the overly fancy sofa, next to Dave, it was comfortable at least. Grace walked back in a second later, passing another two cups to Dave and Jaden respectively.

"Thanks, mom," Allison said, and Klaus, who had already started guzzling the coffee down responded with a nod in agreement. Grace just gave a warm, motherly smile, before leaving the room. "So, Vanya's new boyfriend changed his identity, so we wouldn't know it was him?" Klaus asked, leaning forward, and onto one leg, he had taken the opportunity to get some new clothes as well, but he was still wearing his usual coat and jeans with cross stitched sides.

"He killed his dad, was convicted for 12 years, I don't think he wanted anyone to know his identity." Jaden did the math, he must have been around his dad's age, so he would have been what, seventeen? Jaden snorted,

"Delinquents these days." He tried to keep it light, bring, some sort of humor to this entirely bleak situation. Allison hummed in response.

"Yeah, not sure about that." She stated, before taking a drink of her coffee again. Had coffee just become a family staple or something now? Better than his dad's drugs at least. "I don't know, I'm just worried about the others, I mean, their absolute idiots, but they're my brothers, you know." Allison had a slight smile on her face, despite the serious tone in her voice, which caused dad to burst into laughter, hugging Allison into his side.

"I can relate." He said, continuing to laugh way too much for the actual comedy potential of the moment, and situation, but it brought a rise out of everyone else, and suddenly the mood wasn't as heavy. Even papa was chuckling a bit at the situation, Jaden didn't know if he had any siblings back in 1969, but now was the least appropriate time to ask really, now that he thought of it.

*******

The mood stayed light for about fifteen minutes - when the sound of a car skidding to a stop was heard from outside. That was when the light banter stopped, and they remembered they should probably be worried that it was some, undesirables again. After a few seconds, swearing could be heard from the front door.

"Five?" Allison asked, standing up, and walking out into the foyer. Jaden gave a look to his dad, before he followed after her, just in time to see Diego open the door, with Luther behind him, and what looked to be the journal they'd found.

"Is that it then?" Jaden said, walking over to look at the book, Diego passed it to him silently, and Jaden began to flip through the pages.

"Yeah, it's our dad's journal alright, his information on all of us, the sick bastard," Diego said, walking away, Jaden was preoccupied with his reading.

"We found another possible victim of this guys as well," Luther said, from somewhere behind him, Jaden looked up at the huge sulking figure.

"Really? Are there any missing peoples reports?" Jaden asked Diego, who looked at him with a look of somewhere between suspicious, and confused, with maybe a bit of admiration in there, which would make Jaden grin like the Cheshire cat on any other day.

"Um yeah, first chair of Vanya's orchestra." Jaden groaned and facepalmed with the book in hand.

"These things are never easy are they." Jaden looked over at Five, who was rubbing his leg, with a disturbed look on his face. "Everything alright there, old man?" He asked the others followed his gaze. Five didn't respond or seemed to be listening, just scratched, at his leg harder.

"Leonard grabbed his leg," Diego responded instead. "Didn't think he'd react like this though." Jaden could sympathize, the number of times he'd been groped at when he was in Vietnam made him shiver in distaste.

"Probably best to leave him for a while," Dave said. everyone gave him questioning looks, except Klaus and Jaden, of course. "It's happened to Jaden before." He stated, shrugging, and Jaden felt his cheeks go red in embarrassment.

"Dad." Jaden groaned, he didn't call Dave that unless he was really upset with him, and Dave must have found this amusing, because, he, was grinning. Jaden groaned and walked back into the living room, deciding to leave the immature adults to their own business, while he tried to figure out exactly what Leonard knew.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was the sixth chapter, thank you, everyone, whos read this book, it makes me so happy that at least some people enjoy it. With any luck, I'll be posting later in the week to at least give you some more content.


	8. chapter 7 - if only we'd known

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are finally being worked out, and yet the closer they get to stopping the apocalypse, the more meaningful conversations happen between the Katz-Hargreeves family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp look whos back, I apologize for my about month long hiatus, I just kind of yeeted out of the fandom for a bit, still techically not fully back into it yet, but I have nothing better to do than write this, and draw a few comics now, so yeah, also I'm completely ignoring grammarly on this one, it's annoying, and I don't really want to have perfect grammar, so yeah.

Jaden sat on the bar table, reading Vanya's section of the journal, converting sound into energy, a powerful power, destructive as well, if this book was to be believed. He heard the sound of walking coming towards him, an unfamiliar cane being used. He looked up to see a chimpanzee. "Pogo I presume." Jaden said, lowering the book onto his lap.

"Not much to presume there I'm afraid, master Jaden." Jaden smiled slightly, he'd had people call him master before, he'd never much liked the term, but it always felt better to not be misgendered anyway.

"Only talking chimpanzee in the house then? No secret siblings or anything." He was joking of course, for the most part, he could tell half the stuff his dad told him was fabricated, or at least dramaticised, he always had this look in his eye when it happened. Pogo smiled, and chuckled at the joke.

"No master Jaden, I'm afraid not." He turned serious after that, and looked at the book in Jaden's hands "I see you found Master Hargreeves' journal." He looked back down at it, closing it for the time being.

"Diego did." He said simply, Pogo nodding slightly in response.

"There's a lot I haven't been able to tell them." Jaden eyed him up suspiciously.

"You knew." Pogo nodded, it seemed sort of solemn, while simultaneously holding little regret for what he'd done. "Bound to obey him I suppose." Jaden said, looking back at the book, and what looked to be a little piece of banana peel on it. He pulled it off, flicking it to one side of them room, it went behind a bookshelf, maybe if he was feeling philosophical, he would have made some big speech about how it simulated the meaning of life, but even he knew there was more to life than hiding away forever.

"I'm afraid I owed him a life debt." Pogo said, his expression neutral, how could her talk anyway?

"Bummer." Jaden said, looking away for a second, letting his hand leaning off of the bar. "You know that no-one here's going to keep you to that right?" Jaden smiled lightly, at least his dads wouldn't, ok maybe dad would do it as a joke or something, but never while being serious.

"There aren't really any other places for me to go, besides I've devoted myself to this family for my entire life, I will see it through to my end." Ah, so he cared about the rest of the Hargreeves, as well, probably to be expected.

"Still doesn't tell me why this exists." He lifted the book, glancing back at Pogo for a second, from his place, Jaden was taller than him, despite being slouched. He'd been told he could get a look in his eye when he wanted to, this forceful look that could cause many, if not all to cower in submission, the glare of a god.

"Master Hargreeves did in depth experiments on the children, to test the potential of their powers." Jaden sneered, looking down at the book in an abject sort of horror. He wanted to hurtle the book out the window, but they needed it, but that didn't change the fact that it was downright disgusting to look at.

"You don't get a kid to get over his fear of ghosts, by putting in him in a place full of vengeful spirits Pogo, that's just common sense." He jumped off and through the book onto the bar, "And who's this 4.5? He's spoken of a few times in Klaus' section." Pogo picked up the book, flicking to the offending page, and at that moment, Jaden wasn't entirely sure he knew anymore than they did.

"I'm not sure master Jaden, master Hargreeves had many secrets, even from me." He passed the book back to Jaden, he didn't feel as much anger towards it now, but it still wasn't a good feeling. Jaden started to walk upstairs, it was probably long past Five's turn with the book anyway, and he needed it more than Jaden did.

"Yeah, ok, see ya Pogo." He put the hand not holding the journal in his pocket, before taking off up the stairs.

*******

Jaden walked into Five's room, the person in question was yet again drawing on his walls, and he pitied the fact that once this was over, he'd be the one to have to clean it off. "You realise that you're going to be the one to clean that off right?" Jaden said, leaning against the door frame. Five didn't turn until he'd finished his, wait, was he using trigonometry? In an apocalypse equation? Gods this was getting weirder. When Five had finished said triangle, he hopped off the set of draws he'd been stood on for the whole endeavor.

"Did you find anything useful." Jaden smirked, though Five didn't return it, just scowled.

"In fact I did." He turned to give Five the book, who instantly started flicking through it. "It's definitely Vanya I'll tell you that much. Has the power to turn sound into energy, which is already confusing, considering sound is already a type of energy." Jaden said, Five didn't respond as he read through Vanya's section of the journal, it was probably the most interesting part of the book, considering no-one even knew she had powers, besides Reginald, Pogo, and maybe Grace.

"It's more like her powering her other powers with it, using it as an energy source, to turn it into a more destructive energy." Five explained, oh, yeah that made sense.

"Oh, ok, whatever, she could still use it to basically become the human equivalent of a nuclear bomb." Jaden said, he was being slightly sarcastic of course. Now that he thought of it, could she even survive her own power in that state.

"That would imply she'd leave the planet completely uninhabitable, and she doesn't, it's just a lot more difficult." Five was such a mood killer, Jaden didn't even suspect he was properly listening to Jaden at this point. He could empathise with Five in a way, being away from your family for a large portion of your life, or most of it in Five's case, not that Jaden was stuck in a deserted wasteland, most of the time.

"Dude, I wasn't being completely literal." Jaden complained, melodramatically. He slugged into the room and face planted into Five's bed.

"Get off my bed Jaden." Five said, though he was suddenly really involved with the wall again. Jaden turned his head to be met with the creepiest sight he'd ever seen. It was a fucking mannequin, or some of it at least, it's face was a bit scratched up, and it was missing an arm, or any legs, it didn't even fucking have any hair.

"Um Five, where in the hells did you get this mannequin from." Jaden said, crawling away from it. He must have gotten it from somewhere, did he steal it?

"Don't insult Dolores." Five said, actually turning to face his nephew this time, and he was holding the sharpy as if he was going to stab it in his neck, wait, how did he get fucking sharpy off the walls?

"Where did you get-" He considered this for a second before continuing. "Her, from." He continued carefully, not wanting to get into another fight with him.

"A clothes shop, they won't miss her." Five shrugged, so his uncle was a thief, and an apocalypse survivor, great, his family was just getting better and better. Jaden rolled his eyes and got off the bed.

"I don't even want to know what you do with her, and it's not like you probably even use the bed anyway." He was facing away from Five now, but he could feel the glare reaching his back, he would have flipped him off but, he needed some sort of sanity in this madhouse.

*******

Klaus was busy looking through the bags of clothes that they'd bought today, it was a damn good haul in his opinion, and with Jaden's binders coming tomorrow, thanks to Allison's amazon prime account, they could rest happy knowing that they all had clean clothes. Klaus ruffled through the bag finding more shirts with galaxies on, and a shoulderless crop top, all belonging to Jaden's collection, so he put them to his right. They probably should have been more organised with whose clothes went in which bag, but they'd just been happy to get them.

"How is it, that our, adoptive son, is so similar to you." He emphasized the adoptive part, and for any other context it might have been an insult of some sort, but the similarities between their personalities had grown over their time together, but he couldn't claim full responsibility. Jaden wasn't exactly a troubled child in Vietnam, not in the traditional sense that is, he handled himself quite well considering, he'd clearly had some sort of battle training before hand, considering her he handled a sword so well.

"He picked it up while we were in Vietnam Dave." He said gently, Dave hadn't really gotten along with Jaden that well in the beginning, Klaus kept him around out of a sense of obligation to keep him safe, for getting him into this, but Dave had gotten the wrong idea, mutual pining was more difficult when a third party was their after all, took them dancing in a bar, and a bar fight for Jaden's honor for Dave to warm up to him, after that, they just became a family unit, maybe, he'd never been in real family before.

"Yeah, I guess." He said, sorrow filling his voice, Klaus wanted to hug him, but there would be time for that, and more later, the sorrow could fade, they had a bright future ahead of them, if the apocalypse was prevented. The door opened behind them, Klaus knew it was probably Jaden, and so looked up at him, from his place on the floor. Sure enough, his beloved son was there, glancing at the two older men.

"Sorry I ran off earlier." Klaus smiled at him, sweetly, no jokes, no malice, no drugs, how long he'd wanted to smile like this to a child of his own, sure he'd never seen Jaden as a cute baby, but to be able to shape the man he'd grow into, be one of the father figures in his life, it was like a dream come true to him.

"It's fine, it just died down after a while." He said still smiling, after a minute, Jaden walking into the room, his room, and grabbed one of the remaining bags, adding the clothes to the different piles. It was interesting really, Dave had all these shirts, and more posh old timers clothes, Klaus had picked whatever looked nice in the moment, and Jaden had gone for just about anything blue, purple, or shoulderless, with a side theme of galaxy, from both the men's, and women's sections.

"I can't tell if it was surprising, or not to find you two perusing the women's section together." Dave said, Jaden smiled from where he was planted on the bed, sorting through the clothes, he was more organised and methodical with them than Klaus was, but less so than Dave, who was totally the house wife, in a weird way.

"Just because I'm a man, does not mean, I'm not in touch with my feminine side." Jaden said, throwing a fairly cheap leather jacket to his side, as well as five pairs of various galaxy leggings, they'd spotted. They'd gone to the closest mall, and had gone to various shops in it, most clothing shops, but occasionally they'd walk by a games shop, and Dave would marvel at an old GBA in the window; It had been a site when they'd walked in and showed him the psvr headset on display, he'd skipped 50 years of development, and the simplest marvels seemed to leave him in awe. To having nothing, to suddenly being able to play games that were so realistic, they hadn't bought anything from there yet, they needed their own, proper money before they could do that, which meant one of them had to get a job, joys, or inherit a bunch of money, from the dead Hargreeves, man. It'd be the best thing he'd done, ever.

"Yeah, when did you realise you were trans?" Dave asked, Klaus looked up at Jaden, who sat in thought for a few minutes, before answering.

"It was before I was ten, so I was probably about eight. I lived in a super conservative world, so no-one really excepted me there, I was teased and bullied, ended up deciding to just run through one of the random rifts in space time, that would appear around me. My parents before weren't bad, certainly good for where I lived, but I never really missed them. Ended up running strait into a roman arena, won the title of a god and just kind of, lived from there really." He curled into himself slightly, memories, Klaus suspected, he knew Jaden's time was hard, and he'd had to grow up much faster than others, more mature, too mature.

"I'm sorry you never had the chance to be a kid." Klaus said, the sentance was familiar, and Klaus was brung back to his own childhood, he severly doubted that Jaden's was as hard as his, it least in the way it was for him. Jaden gave him a sorrowful smile, before shuffling his way to the end of the bed, and embracing Klaus in a hug, before turning to Dave, and opening his arm for him to join.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was pretty much an intermission chapter I guess, I mean, I've had this written for a few weeks, but because grammarly is really annoying and I literally as I'm typing this just realised I had it on American English all this time, when I'm British, because I'm stupid. I'm just going to switch it off. Also this is probably my longest fic now, which is good, because I'm determined for this to actually be one of my more limited fics, considering I have the entire story set out and I can't wait to introduce you to the rest of the main cast. Yup, this is literally just the beginning, this is just me laying the ground works and figuring out how to right everyones character, setting up the arcs, and concluding ones from the show, before we get to our main plot. Also I might think about getting a wiki, or at least righting an encyclopedia side book for this, not sure if I mentioned it beforehand, but I think fandom is free, so we'll see. It's just that this stuff might get a little confusing later on down the line, and I want to be able to catalogue this stuff properly, as well as my other projects.
> 
> well, I've rambled long enough. Again thank you to everyone whosread this, even though, I can't keep an update schedule, and need to look up the word schedule, and hopefuly I'll update again hopefully I'll have updated again by the end of the year.


	9. chapter 8 - so we meet again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an attack occurs on the Hargreeves residence, again, and this time, it turns out differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we're at the point, at least I am with writing this, that I should probably start asking for requests, if anyone wants to see any specific crossovers with this story. If you do, it's not guaranteed to be in this fic, and will depend on my prior knowledge of the story as well as how much of a commitment it would take to make a crossover with it. I will also do side stories, and oneshots if I find one I like that doesn't fit. But that depends on if anyone has ideas, if not, it's fine, I do have a lot of the story planned out.

Hazel and Cha-cha walked up to the block of flats yet again, by this point, Cha-cha wondered if they were ever going to not come here, whenever they needed to kill someone. Thankfully this time they had more of a knowledge of what they were up against, a drug addict, Vietnam war veterans, and ex academy members, there was nothing that could surprise them this time, Cha-cha was sure of that. There was an open window on the second floor, the light was on though, and the faint whispers of voices could be heard from it, the occasional laughter of a family, their target was probably there. "Hazel, help me with that dumpster." Cha-cha said strictly, it was quiet for her usual tone, as commending as ever. She just wanted out of this alley, and this job if she was going to be honest.

Hazel seemed sluggish tonight, not with exaustion probably, he'd been like this the entire time, and Cha-cha was beginning to get really annoyed with it. But eventually the dumpster was in place, and Cha-cha was able to hop onto the window, and sure enough, there was the teen. Their eyes suddenly went wide, as they grabbed The drug addict and the veteran, pulling them down, just as Cha-cha sent a barrage of bullets their way. Hopefully they could provide some sort of entertainment at least. She hopped from the window onto the bed, the man had been on the floor, so she expected to see them hiding underneath the bed, only they weren't. Hazel finally came out after her her.

"Fuckers got out." She said simply, reloading her gun, as she walked out into the hallway, there was a sound behind her of bullets, she turned to see Hazel had shot at a plant pot. "What are you doing." She hissed his way, they did not need the extra attention the half wit could bring.

"I thought I saw him there" He said. Great, and now he was hallucinating. There was a whistle coming from the banister, and sure enough, there was their target, leaned down, wearing a shoulderless crop top, and weird galaxy leggings.

"So." He said, There was an infinite sort of patients in his voice, and a condescendingness she'd only expect from emperors of the worst lands, it infuriated her, and yet she found no need to immediately shoot him. "Is there a reason that you're invading our house again?" She definitely would have remembered a fucking drag queen if he was here last time. The boy, stepped off of the balcony swiftly, he was short, thin, and very feminine, he had the sort of curves only a girl could have, trans then, great. She pointed her gun at him, to which he swiftly put his hands up, in defence, it wasn't truthful though,there was a smirk on his face, and he walked in such a cocky way, that he could have only been doing it on purpose. A shot ran right past her head, a sniper shot.

"Shit." Cha-cha turned to see Five, the little shit, reloading his gun. She turned to him, and he looked up just in time to see, and dodge the bullets, teleporting out of the way. Then she heard a shout, and quickly turned around to see an angry Jaden pouncing onto her.

It took a moment for her to recover, and she threw the teen off, he flew into into a wall, and dropped what looked to be some sword stolen from an ancient Rome exibit at a museum. The fuck was wrong with this family.

*******

Jaden had been enjoying the night for all intensive purposes, it was mostly just chatting like they used to, nothing too deep or emotional most of the time, but light enough that they occasionally laughed, and a grin never left Jaden's face, it was what he had missed in his first few years of life, companionship, understanding, sure it wasn't exactly normal for a teen to have such a bond with their parents, he knew that, but it was ride or die in war, and Jaden at least wanted to make the most of a bad situation, and this led to their oddly close bond, like friends, except Klaus had felt responsible, and had gone off drugs for him, and Dave, well Dave was just a very kind person in general, but he was the one to train the two flamboyant boys when times got tough, and they both realized that neither had used a gun in their lives, which actually surprised Jaden.

It was during one of these light moments, when Jaden saw an odd image in his window, a person wearing a pink bunny mask? helmet? Whatever it was, they were holding a gun. Jaden's first reaction, was of course, to duck and cover, dragging his parents below the cover of the bed, and tearing a portal in the floor as fast as he could.

They ended up in the kitchen, and Jaden took the moment to panic. "The fuck." Klaus said, getting a grip on himself, Dave seemed to have less trouble, though, but was still had a look of shock on his face.

"Creepy guy in a bunny mask, or something was in the window." Jaden said, only now realizing he was hyperventilating, but that wasn't the problem here.

A look of pure horror arrived on Klaus' face, something completely different to Vietnam - more personal. "Hazel and Cha-cha." Klaus whispered, shaking violently as he tried to stand, it sadly wasn't going all too well for him though, all things considered. Dave caught him as he stumbled though, he knew just as well as Jaden the torture he'd endured. Jaden turned to the exit, he needed to go fight them, it was then that the sound of bullets could be heard, or at least finish.

"I need to go help." He said, he couldn't confirm that anyone else would fight them, or were indeed in the mansion, but he hoped they were. Jaden looked back at Dave who had Klaus' arm draped around his neck, he looked scared traumatized, he hyperventilating.

"Jaden, it's suicide." Dave said, taking a step forward towards him. It was a heavy step, he wasn't struggling from the weight of Klaus, he knew that his dad was light enough for just about anyone to carry him, let alone Dave, but the way he was dragging seemed to have an effect on the other. "This isn't the jungle Jaden, no trees to hide behind, no open clearings to trick people in, please, just stay here where it's safe." Jaden smiled somberly, he knew that, but he still needed to help.

"Papa, stay with Dad, I'll be fine. With any luck the others will help as well, just keep yourselves safe." A shot rang out as Jaden finished, a shot gun of some kind, it rung out around the room unlike the other shots, and seemed to wake Klaus from his daze. Jaden didn't wait around though, he opened a portal a jumped through it.

He ended up at the end of the hallway near his room, and could clearly see Hazel and Cha-cha from where he was, couldn't tell you which was which mind you, but he could see that the one in the rabbit mask was about to shoot Five. "Not on my watch." He whispered, reaching into a portal, to grab his sword, before running up behind them silently. He pounced, like a goddamned cat, to catch his prey, and landed pretty well, he was a half decent acrobat it seemed. Saddly he didn't have a chance to get a good hit on them though, before being thrown against a wall.

He recovered quickly though, standing up with little effort, and looking his opponent in the overly cartoonish eyes. They turned their gun towards him, "bitch," He choked out, spitting out drop of blood, that was worrying - the masked assailant coiled back, reaching for their arm as they dropped their gun, Jaden looked over to see Five had shot at them. He grinned.

The other invader made a move for the gun - Jaden took a dive for it, sliding on the floor - grabbing the gun as he passed and wasted no time at aiming it at his head. "Drop the gun kid." The voice was clearly male, deep, with a sort of soft guilt in it, and Jaden doubted that he really wanted to be doing this. Jaden's arm was yanked to the side, the other assailant pulling at his wrist, trying to wrench the gun out of his hand, Jaden grit his teeth as he tried to avoid the force pulling his arm, he ended up kicking them in the chest, yup definitely female, that's for sure.

Two knives came from the other side of the hall, clearly coming from Diego, they circled towards the woman and lodged in her chest. He turned, looking at his uncle, who was in full leather. Behind him was her dad and papa, Klaus was now stood up by himself, though still unsteady. Jaden stood up, walking over towards them, his stomach and wrist hurt, pain going through him in waves, but he rubbed it off.

"Jaden." Klaus said, rushing to him once he was close enough, and embracing him in a hug, despite his lithe figure, he could give surprisingly tight hugs, as though he was desperately trying to hold onto him, as though he'd fade away if he was to let go. Jaden loved them.

"I'm fine dad, really." He said, he tried desperately to keep the croaking out of his voice, but it was saddly too much, and he ended coughing straight into his dads coat again.

*******

Klaus could hear voices, he was struggling to gain consciousness sick flashes from that day were before him in a matter of seconds, all of a sudden a few seconds seemed like a whole day hours. A gunshot brought him out of it though. It was long echoing controlled, and he remembered where he was. He saw Jaden leave, all he got in his head from that though were danger signs, he couldn't move though, no matter how hard he tried to do so. Before long, Jaden slipped away through the mysterious portals he could create. Fear racked through his body at the sight, and he lurched out of his boyfriends grasp too late to stop him, he hadn't heard it last time this house had been broken into, and he'd suffered for it, who knows what would happen this time.

"Klaus, stop." The firm grasp of Dave, preventing him from completely falling to the ground, awoke him completely. He was half collapsed onto the floor, but got up quickly.

"We need to worn the others." Klaus said, he could tell he sounded week, and the look from Dave told him he was worried about him too.

"I'd be more surprised if they didn't already know what was happening." Dave said, holding onto Klaus, as he looked to the entrance to the kitchen. There was the sound of running, it was too light to be Luther's; he didn't hear Allison's heels, must be Diego then.

Sure enough, Diego rushed down to them, breathing heavily, had he just run the full length of the mansion, looking for them?

"There you are" He said, he wasn't quite breaking a sweat, but he seemed tired enough. "I was worried you'd been snatched again." So he did care then.

"Yeah, we're fine, they crawled through Jaden's window, he got us out of there, but he went to go fight them." Klaus started trying to be more aloof than usual, but that demeanor quickly faded.

"Shit." Diego said, he turned back to the staircase, making sure neither of the assassins came down here. "Allison went to find Luther, he's gone missing again." Diego said, worried.

"He's gone missing before?" Klaus asked, it's not been a major concern for him, to deal with Luther was something he didn't need right now.

"Yeah, he went out last night I think, this morning I saw this girl trying to sneak out of the house." Klaus couldn't help but laugh at the thought, Luther had probably been a virgin before this, oh he would remember to bring this up later. But for now, they needed to find a way to defeat them on their own.

"We need to go help Jaden." He, taking the lead for once and walking up the stairs, not even paying attention to if the others were following.

He couldn't pretend he wasn't scared as he saw Jaden holding a gun, half pointed to one of the assailants, and half pointed towards a wall due to his wrist being held by Cha-cha. Diego was the one to take action though, throwing a couple of his knives at her. The world seemed to move slow in that moment, gripped with worry, he stood and watched as Diego lodged the knives into the woman's chest, she fell back slightly, and Jaden turned to towards them.

The boy dropped the gun as he stood up, before walking over to them slowly. Klaus noticed a red mark on his arm from where Cha-cha had gripped his wrist, and saw Jaden rub his stomach for a second. "Jaden." His voice was full of worry, but when wasn't it, Jaden was troubling, or at least the way he acted was. He always jumped into fights, with seemingly little thought of the consequences to doing so, and couldn't say no to them even if he wanted to. And that was more troubling than the minor injuries he'd gotten this time around. He hadn't even noticed he'd started hugging Jaden until the teen spoke.

"I'm fine dad, really." Jaden said, and Klaus couldn't believe it for a second. He really wanted to ground Jaden for this, but he wasn't sure how much good it would do, their family was fast and loose at best, and they hadn't talked about any kind of rules thus yet, plus the apocalypse could still happen, Vanya was missing, and that wasn't even getting into Jaden's powers, or how likely it was he'd even listen to Klaus. In the end he just sighed.

"We'll talk about this at another time Jaden." He really tried not to sound disapointed, but the look on Jaden's face told him he'd failed. He wasn't even disapointed at Jaden, just at the situation he'd been put in, and the fact that he didn't know how to deal with this.

From where he was standing, Klaus could see Hazel rush to Cha-cha, grabbing the gun as he did so. He held onto her and pointed the gun straight at the hugging pair, he wasn't sure how Diego and Dave didn't notice what he was doing, but Klaus moved just as the gun was shot, shocking Jaden, as he pushed them both down to the side, and he was sure that if it was in a movie, it would have been edited in slow motion. The shot skidded past the two other men in the hallway, who were talking, and hitting a painting, to create a very big rip in the image. It was probably for the best that none of the siblings actually liked the decor in the house.

Klaus looked back at Dave and Diego, both had turned and looked ready to fight Hazel, who was still holding both the gun in one hand and Cha-cha in the other.

"Don't move." He said, the arm with the gun in it's hand was shaking, something was wrong with the man, and he was trying to cover it up. No-one moved for a moment, not even Hazel spoke, Jaden was safely held in Klaus' arms, and quick glance to Dave, showed him, he was ready to move too, if he needed to. Jaden tried to squirm, to see Hazel, but Klaus had but his entire body in his way, and he was determined to be the one hit, if Hazel decided to shoot in their direction. Ben was sitting on the banister, tense, he'd barely had time to recognise that he'd also followed Klaus until now, no-one else could see or talk to him, so he supposed he'd tried to stay quiet.

Klaus turned back to Hazel, a determined and angry look on his face, he would not let his family die for him, not this time.

Before any other move was taken, a shadow rose behind behind Hazel, and the stock of a rifle hit him on the top of the head. The mask reverberated, shaking, and Hazel could clearly feel the force of the blow, as he held his head before collapsing forwards. Then Five stood on his back, pressing him into the floor. "And that's why you don't mess with my family." He shouted, angry and determined. Oh how he loved little, old Five in that moment, always finding new ways to save the day.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love not watching a show, then a new episode or season comes along, and you kind of don't want to watch it anymore, because you know your favorite character is dead. So yeah, if anyone shares the pain of losing a beloved character in a show, movie or game, let us all have a moment of silence for our lost friends.  
> And with that my little rant type thing is over, but really, if anyone does end up suggesting that show, I will watch it thoroughly, because I do have ideas for it. I just need context to it. Also we're getting close to the first crossover coming into effect, and I am quite excited, as I don't think anyone's actually tried doing it this way before. I might be wrong, but oh well.  
> So thank you to all read my weird ramblings, or just read this story. I hope you will continue to enjoy, or tolerate this work, as I continue. Also please, don't be afraid to critisize or review my work, and I hope you will join me for the next update.


	10. chapter 9 - Not so perfect after all

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luther has a problem, sadly he won't admit it. Also assassins in the basement, how fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop whoop, longest chapter I've written so far. I'm currently writing chapter 12, which is either going to be the last or second to last chapter of the ark, depends how intense it get I guess, and after that, the fun parts really start.

Allison was pretty worried about her brother right now, she was also extremely worried about her sister. Sweet Vanya, who would somehow cause the apocalypse soon, if they didn't stop her. But Luther had to be her main concern right now. He'd gone missing that evening, and no-one had really noticed until the gunshots had rung through the mansion. She'd expected him to come barreling into her room, but he didn't, that's when she knew something was wrong, so she'd found Diego, and she told him she was going to go look for him.

She was now walking down a sketchier part of town. He hadn't really left the house until this morning, so it was fully possible that he'd wandered into the area.

The looks she was getting right now were some of the most unnerving she'd ever gotten in a while. Broken toothed crackheads, and horny teens, all looking at her with clearly interested eyes, too interested if you asked her; it made her shiver from the way it made her feel.

She noticed something from the corner of her eye. A bunch of flashing bright lights coming from an almost abandoned looking building, and it probably should have been from the way the roof looked as though it was about to cave in, and the mysterious indents in the weak walls. But what caught her attention the most were the amount of giggling girls that looked too young to be at an establishment like this.

"I heard he was a fury." One spoke, voice too high pitched to be any older than 19, and even that was pushing it.

"Did Elly tell you how good he was in bed?" Another said. The girls were huddled too close to really tell them apart especially with all the neon lights that reflected onto them.

"Oh yeah, she said he was really cute, and was very cuddly as well, must have been all the fur on his chest." The first said, and Allison had more than a hunch that they were talking about Luther. She made her way a bit closer to the group, trying to avoid being seen by them.

"Did he at least pay well?" Another said, and Allison could tell she had black hair, from the way it stayed almost the same in all the light.

"No, just shoved her out the door, and told her to not be seen." The others gave off disappointed sighs, but the main girl gave them a wide grin. "But he lived in the Hargreeves mansion, so I bet if we can butter him up enough, he'll pay a hefty price." Allison didn't know who to be angry at right now, she wanted to go punch the now cheery girls in the face and tell them to do something better with their lives than trick people into paying them for sex, but she was now afraid of what would happen if she Luther alone any longer, so she went up to them.

"Hi girls." she said, as pleasantly as she could muster. The girls all turned towards her, they were wearing everything from crop tops and shorts to bikinis, and it was extremely unnerving. They gave her varying looks, some gave her shocked looks, others were confused, and others were just downright disgusted, it seemed, and she was not prepared for that.

"Who are you?" The one who'd been leading the conversation said, she'd been one of the disgusted ones, and had this sort of trying to be more than she actually was vibe going on with her. And her voice was grating, almost downright unrecognisable as a human language even. She sounded like the sort of girl who'd never been able to pick up a straight accent as a kid, and layered so much forced privalage into her voice, that she sounded like a bad actress in a mean girls remake.

"Um." She didn't want to answer, if they found out who she was, or spread it around, this sort of thing could kill her career for good and she didn't want to have to wish it back. "I was just wandering around town, and heard you talking, I wanted to know the details." Oh she hoped no-one recognised her as a member of the Hargreeves family. She'd layered that last part in so much sexual intreague, it would be weird if they knew the two were siblings.

The group didn'y seem to let up though, looks were exchanged between the girls, and what looked like cherry gum aswell. "I don't know." The main one spoke again. "You don't seem like the, regular sort." And now Allison was had just entered a really uncomfortable situation.

"I'm not." She stated, "But I'm interested." She was not looking forward to any consequences this could bring, "But I heard a rumor that you told me were to find this man." Her power slipped from her throat ellegantly, she just had to remember that this wasn't Claire, or anything selfish, this was protecting her brother from getting into trouble. That didn't mean she didn't cringe as soon as she saw the girls faces change, becoming more relaxed.

"Inside." The main girl said, pointing at the ruined building, "Back room, you can't miss him." That was easy enough for her, just walk through until she found him, simple, easy, no problem.

It was every problem once she got inside, there were people everywhere, and the crowds only got thicker the further back she got, until one woman grabbed her shoulder, she was older than the teens outside, thankfully, but she still looked to be in too skimpy clothes.

"Hey, you can't push in line like that." Allison hadn't even noticed the crowd had turned into a line, a line to go to a very suspicious back room.

"Um sorry, I'm looking for my brother, he's here by mistake, I need to get him out of here." She said, kindly enough, though she had to shout to be heard over the music.

"Oh, ok." The woman seemed to let up, and Allison was once again allowed to weave her way through the line, to find Luther.

*******

This looked surprisingly like a torture scene in a movie.

The two strangers, Hazel and Cha-cha, were currently in the process of being tied to chairs by Diego, while Klaus hugged Jaden to his chest, or tried to, considering the size difference, and Five and Dave just stood watching the scene play out.

"I thought I'd dealt with them, they shouldn't be coming after me again." Five said, more to himself than to the others, but he wasn't by any means quiet about his thoughts.

"Yeah well, at least no-one was taken this time." Jaden said, from his place being squished against his dad. He was honestly thinking of calling mum iwht how he was acting right now.

"We still don't know where Luther is though." Diego said, as he finished the last not on Hazel's chair. Before stepping back and looking at his handy work. "Ok, we should be good as long as they don't have switch blades." He said, joining the others at the other side of their captives.

"So how many of you have tortured before." Five said to the group, Jaden raised his hand, much to the shcok of everyone, except Five and the unconscious figures. He finally managed to escape his dads grip thanks to that, with his feet landing on the floor easily.

"When in Rome, you torture as the Roman's do." He said, wiping off his clothes, not like they really needed to wiped, but it was more for the dramatic effect really.

"Well I hope the Roman's were good at torturing then." Five said, before teleporting away, and reapeering a minute later with a bucket of ice water. He threw it haphazardly onto the torturees, waking Hazel up. The rooms light was dulled so that the only light was a single candle placed infront of them. They were in a random empty room at the far corner of the mansion, not used for anything important before Reginald's death, so it was made of concrete, and was extremely dusty from lack of use.

"Wah." Hazel shouted, waking up with a start, and Jaden couldn't help but grin. With any luck he wouldn't really be able to tell the majority of them apart, and the room was so dark that he wouldn't be able to find his was to the door behind them.

"Shut up Hazel." Five said, walking into the candlelight, in all fairness, it was mostly Jaden's idea, but his dad had wanted annonimity for him, Jaden and Dave, this was just the best way he could think of to do it. "Why are you here again?" He threatened. He was holding one of Diego's knives, sharp and ready to cut if necessary, and Jaden suddenly found himself wanting to see Diego's collection, as it seemed quite extensive.

"We had orders." He said, meekly enough for FIve to grip onto.

"What to kill me again?" He said, and all of a sudden he had a sort of crazy glint in his eyes, the sort of look you got from years of loneliness, topped off with being a killer. It made Jaden fear everything Five was, and everything he could become. Age was something he'd get to live through again, and Jaden cold tell that despite not liking it now, he could learn so much more the second time around.

Hazel shook his head. "Some kid named Jaden." Jaden froze. He'd revealed his secrets so easily, did he even want to do this anymore.

Five didn't look fazed, he didn't hesitate to bring the knife closer to Hazel's face, even though it meant jumping onto his lap and lifting his face up towards him. "Tell me what you know." Five threatened, he was holding the knife to Hazel's neck.

"Jaden Katz- Hargreeves, a member of your family. First discovered in 1968, was part of the Vietnam war. A person of the same name was later labelled as an unkillable- " Five let go of his face, and hit him over the head, knocking him out.

"Why'd you do that Five, we had him." Diego said, walking back towards them.

"Jaden was labelled an unkillable, I needed to think it through." Jaden didn't understand this, he scruffed his foot on the grey concrete, gathering dust into a small pile.

"What does that mean?" He asked, lookng back at Five.

"It means, that no matter how much they try, they can't kill you, whether it be through skill, luck, or a power, it doesn't matter, it means that they can't stop you, unless they manipulate you into doing it yourself, it basically means that they wasted too much money trying to kill you and failed." Five said with a metaphorical shrug, he had a very considerate look on his face.

"But if I was labelled unkillable, why did they send them to kill me." Five actually shrugged this time, he still had a blank, thoughtful expression on his face though.

"Maybe it's in your future." He gave Five his own emotionless stare.

"That makes me feel so much better." He sighed, hugging his arms to his chest, he really wanted those binders right now, considering he could have been caught out like this at any time. "But at least I have some forewarning."

"Hey, how come he was so easy to intterigate anyway, I thought you said we were going to have to torture them." Diego asked, he had now diligently started to make sure Cha-cha wasn't dead yet, and that the floor wouldn't be slippery later, picking up bits of unmelted ice as he went. A cool draft made it's way into the room, it was in one of the basements, some sort of butchers maybe? Or at least it had been at one point, though there were no hooks or anything really to say it had been.

Five actually seemed to lighten up a hint at that, a show of amusement on his face. "He's always secretly been a softy, and he wasn't all too good at hiding it. I just didn't know if Cha-cha would wake up or not." Diego checked Cha-cha's vitals.

"No, she's definitely not walking up any time soon." There was a look of resentment and anger in his eyes, that showed he was not saying this with any kind intentions.

"Probably for the best." Klaus spoke up, he looked as though he'd seen a ghost, an ironic saying considering he was constantly seeing them, but this was probably something slightly different to that. He put his hand on Jaden's shoulder, and Jaden looked up to see he also had one on Dave's, and he was looking blind into the distance created by the vast surrounding darkness.

"She could probably die from her wounds though." Jaden said, looking up at his dad, before turning to the others in the room. Neither Five, nor Diego had any sort of pity or sympathy in their eyes, only a sort of hard dread, that made him realise that Cha-cha probably deserved whatever punishment they delivered to her. Jaden didn't know when to step down from a fight though. "Come on, are ou really just going to let her die." He shouted, and Klaus' almost claw like nails dug into his shoulder slightly, a sign for him to let this go.

Diego looked at Jaden as though he had offended him "You do not know what they've done." It was a threat, but Jaden just scowled in response, fists clenching, and feet outomaticaly slipping into an offensive stature, not one for a gun fight, but better handled in melee or hand to hand.

"No, I don't, and I'm not saying she shouldn't come to justice, but killing her isn't going to solve any of that." His voice was stern, and face was dark, and not just from the shadows of the room. He wafted his dad's hand from his shoulder and got into a fighting stance, just as his Papa decided to turn on the dingy, one bulb light, that flooded the room with a week golden glow, that seemed to flicker every few seconds.

Five seemed to be watching with amuzement and wondered for a brief second who would win. Their powers weren't evenly matched by any means really, but that didn't mean that there was a definite victor to this fight.

*******

Eventually, Allison had weaved her way towards a very familiar fury body. Luther was a party animal it seemed, he was drunk, high out of his mind, and girls were trying to get all over him. It almost seemed as though he'd switched places with Klaus, and that was troubling. She took a deep breath and walked towards him, he didn't even seem to notice her in his haze until she tapped him on the shoulder. He turned, a big goofy grin on his face, his eyes unfocussed on her. "Oh hey Allison." He shouted, "Didn't think you'd be here." Oh how she wished she wasn't.

Allison began to pull Luther away from the crowd, earning herself glares from the other girls as she did so. Thankfully, Luther was very compliant to her guiding him out of the building and back into the alley.

She let go of him once there was fresh air to breath, and crossed her arms as she put on her best disapointed parent face. "Luther, why are you here." She said, too calm probably for the situation and in that moment, she seemed to reach him. Luther looked back at the building, before dragging one of his big hands over his face again.

"I did it again, I swore I wouldn't, but I couldn't help it." Allison didn't know how to answer that. Luther seemed to think he was in trouble, as his posture changed to one of a sorry child, so she lustened her own.

"Luther, there was an attack on the house tonight." Luther froze, looking back at her with eyes that seemed to be almost spinning in their sockets.

"What-" He mumbled to himeself. Allison couldn't bare to look at him, he seemed so disapointed with himself, and as much as she'd denied it for so long, she loved and cared for him.

"Those people who took Klaus I think, Thankfully everyone else was there, so if all goes well, we wont have to worry about them." She paused and sighed, before looking back up at him, maybe he hadn't taken as much as it seemed, as for the moment he seemed to hear and see her as clear as ever. "But when you weren't there, it was worrying, you're always the first into action, and We were worried something could have happened to you." She knew it wasn't the truth, half the people in the house found Luther annoying for there own reasons, and maybe they had some weight to them, but they didn't know him like Allison did.

"Aurgh." Luther groaned clenching his head, Allison thought it was a migrain for a moment, reaching out to try and comfort him, until he started speaking again. "I'm so stupid, of course everything would happen when I'm not around." Is that what he'd taken from what she'd said.

"Uh yeah, sure Luther." She externally cringed slightly, maybe it was rude of her, but he was being really weird right now. "Look, the others have probably already dealt with them, but we were really worried about you and-"

"Of course, this is what I need to get me out of this little hitch, I need to make the team come together again, to save the earth."

"What, no, the team is fine, we've been doing fine Luther, remember, we're actually coming together for once." Allison tried to reason, she hated to think what was going through Luther's drug riddled head right now, but considering she'd probably just saved him from giving all their money away to a hooker, it probably wasn't good. Allison sighed, placing her face into her hand before grabbing Luther's arm and dragging him down the street, reasoning with herself that he was clearly out of it, and clearly needed to hybernate on the moon for another seven years or so.

"How could I be so blind, the truth was right infront of me all along." She hoped he retained no memory of this tommorow, or else he might join a cult, or even worse, start one. She looked up at his face, which was facing in no particular direction, and looking every which way, though he wasn't taking any of this in.

She felt so embarrased as she managed to finally walk to the mansion, with only several people looking at them like they were crazy. She kicked open the door instead of using her free hand, not very hard, it was expensive, and an actually nice door for once in their fathers life, but she still felt she had to do it to get some of the anger out.

Diego was sat in that main entrance on top of a cubord that had been there for probably at least 20 years, but somehow still looked completely stable, he turned to them, and gave one glance at Luther's tripped out state, before turning to talk to Allison instead. "What happened to him?" He asked, paying no mind as Luther began to wander upstairs on extremely unstead legs.

"Found him at some sort of nightclub, don't know why, had to save his ass from being taken advantage of from a bunch of prostitutes that looked like they just flunked out of highschool." She said, emotionally drained, and about ready to kill Luther if she heard another word about enlightenment coming from him.

"Yeesh, whats he even on? Looks more like something Klaus used to be on." Diego said, waching as his brother fumbled to try and get up the fifth step.

"I have no clue." Allison said, before sighing for the 50th time. "Look, I have infinite pacience for the guy, but if I hear him talking about enlightenment again, I might actually rumor him to forget the umbrella academy never existed." Diego scoffed at that.

"Yeah, not like that would last long, theres enough merchandise in this house, that not even your powers could make him forget longer than a few hours." Diego said, he was smiling, clearly humored by her pain, but she found that that was alright with her, for now.

"So what went on here, seems like the assassins have been dealt with." She said, leaning against the cuboard, and pretending to look at her nails for a second, though one was actually chipped, and that annoyed her more than she'd care to admit right now.

"Oh yeah." Diego continued. "Yeah we dealt with them in like five minutes, I think it was because we had like, two teleporters, and Klaus wasn't entirely useless and getting kidnapped this time, which was nice. Also managed to get some information out of one of them, Hazel, or whatever." He then looked a bit annoyed about something. "Though I was promised we were gonna torture them, but we didn't end up doing that, aparently Hazel's just a huge pansy who hates his job, or something, I don't know, maybe you should go see Klaus about what Luther's on. Once you've got him to bed." He said, looking over at Luther, who had just managed to tackle the 10th step, but was close to stumbling back down again, Allison just sighed, more light hearted this time, and went to go help the poor guy with the stairs.

*******

Klaus didn't want to say he enjoyed watching the knocked out Hazel and Cha-cha, but he wouldn't say he didn't like it either, he got some sort of sadistic pleasure seeing him in a simular situation he had been in when they'd captured him, difference being, that Klaus had been coked out of his mind at the time, and couldn't care less about what happened to him, and felt no-one else did either. His fist tightened, and he forced himself to look away, move away from the two, he left the room, making sure to follow Five's instructions of locking the door from the outside, and triple checking that there was nothing in the room that could help them escape. Even the lightswitch had been tampered with to keep the two in the dark, so unless they had night vision, they had no hope of escaping. Especially thanks to the checks that Five did of them.

Jaden had gone off to bed with Dave, he'd told them to go off without him, and both understood completely what he was going through, maybe they hadn't been through it before, but both knew he had, and that was enough. He slouched, falling against the door so he was on the floor. He still shivered sometimes at just how bad that day had been, it wasn't even a full day, but it still marked such an important change in his life, the day he'd been thrown back to 1968, the day he met Jaden and Dave. He couldn't tell what was going through his head, when he'd fallen into an army tent in Vietnam, with a fifteen year old on his back, and a briefcase in his hands, or when he'd tried to shield the teen from sight. Wasn't even able to recall why he'd allowed the teen to stay with him, he didn't want to go back, not without Dave, but he couldn't let Jaden go on his own either. Once they'd come together as a family, they'd just fit so nicely together, as if it was always meant to be that way.

Klaus smiled and stood up, wiping the tear that had fallen from his eye as he recalled his memories of the past year or so, they were why he continued to live his life drug free, why he'd commited, why he was commiting himself to not find some sort of mindless revenge like Diego, or whatever Five was doing. Thats what drove him to walk up the stairs with a new confidence and stride to his step.

"Hey Klaus." Allison drove his attention to her from the top of the stairs, she looked drained, and was slouched over slightly, unnusual for one of her fame.

"You ok Allison? You look like you just came back from the brink of death." Was he actually comfortable with making death jokes again? He'd gone off them for a long time during the war. There was no humor to be had with them there, but here, he guess he'd use them again.

"Ha, ha very funny, come with me, I need you to identify what sort of drugs Luther is on." Allison held absolutely no humor in her voice, and lead him up the stairs to Luther's room quietly.

"Allison, I'm not a pharmacist, or even a doctor, I can't just identify drugs, like it's my job." Klaus tried to reason, he was actually being humorfull this time, though Allison didn't seem to notice or care.

"Look, I don't want to offend you or anything, but if anyones going to be able to recognise what drugs Luther's on, it's you, ok." She'd actually stoped in the middle of speaking, and if Klaus hadn't been so far behind her, he pobably would have walked right into her. Klaus could actually agree with what she was saying though, he was probably the most knowledgable of whatever drugs Luther was on, it was just a really weird subject for him right now.

"Ok, ok, it's fine really, I'll take a look." He said, and reserved himself to silence for the next few minutes, whatever made her happy.

*******

Luther's room was in a slight state. His increased height and shoulder width was probably difficult to get used to in such a tiny room, which was why multiple objects had been knocked over and carefully placed to the side, probably to be fixed later. Luther himself was also in a state, layed every which way on his bed, that he barely fit onto properly now, he couldn't even tell if he was asleep.

"What are the symptoms doc." Klaus said, as he walked to Luther's side.

"Um weirdly out of it, I think he was hallucinating or something, I mean he just kind of went into his own space." Allison said, she was standing back a bit, clearly deep in thought. "I don't know, I mean I told him about that attack, and I think he got it in his head that the team was falling apart withought him, seemed kind of full of himself." Klaus gave her a deadpan look, he couldn't help it, the situation was just so stangely Luther. "Ok, more than usual." Allison finally admitted. She looked at the floor to her right after that, clearly embarrased.

"So you admit he has a problem." Klaus said, feeling Luther's head, he wasn't burning up, so whatever it was, it either wasn't potent enough to cause harm, or so potent that it would deeply effect a normal person, but Luther was just more resiliant. Now that would be a super power.

Allison sighed, she looked at him with a pointed gaze, almost a glare. "Look if you're going to be like Diego on this I won't bother next time. It's just that I know Luther has his own issues, but I dunno, maybe I just have a higher tolerance of them, or something." She said, dragging her hand over her face. Klaus thought that she was going to say something after that, but he was only met with silence, it wasn't awekward per say, just strange, different, and a little bit uncomfortable, at least on Allison's part.

Klaus sighed in resignation, "It's not like that." He tried, to be honest, he didn't know what it was like, he just knew he didn't feel the same way as Diego, he had much more empathy than most gave him credit for, so he knew what Luther was trying to deal with. "Look, he's annoying as hell, he's had a lot of favouritism towards him all his life, but let me tell you." He chuckled, actually turning to face Allison fully as he continued, "He ain't nearly as bad as Jaden was when I met him." He was almost full on laughing soon enough, it wasn't funny at the time, Jaden had come across as insensitive, but now that he thought back to it, that was just Jaden's brand of caring, motivational speeches, that were unusually effective.

Allison looked up at him, confused look on her face, and perhaps a little bit incriminating. "What do you mean, Jaden doesn't act like Luther." Klaus chuckled again.

"Yeah, now. Turns out that being raised as a god in Rome, doesn't go well with humbleness." Klaus said. Allison gave him an unbelieving look.

"He was raised in Rome?" Allison asked. Klaus would admit that he wasn't paying attention to Luther anymore, not that it really mattered, he seeme to be out cold now.

"For five years, yeah, something about killing a beast in an arena and becoming a god in the eyes of the public or something." It had been a very early subject of discussion, and something Jaden had very quickly tried to supress, both the place, and the aspects of his personality they instilled in him, though it was interesting for him to spew their native language in the heat of battle.

"A bit strange, does he have proof to back up the claim?"

"Ah, you've never seen him in action have you? He has a fancy sword and some armor that he doesn't really use." He explained, walking away from the bed he'd been leaning against. Allison looked down at Luther from where she stood, and Klaus followed her gaze back to him. "Oh, he's fine, with any luck he'll either forget everything he's said tonight, or realise that it was the drugs talking." Klaus said, walking towards the door. He paused, thinking for a moment, before snorting. "I just realised, you should probably tell Claire she has a cousin next time you see her." It was nice to think about his family from the perspective of Jaden, a kid who'd been withought the most stable life being brought into an extended family that seemed to care about him for the most part. It was a dream compared to Klaus' view of them, a bunch of strange people he'd only vaguely known all his life, and was finally connecting with, maybe, he hadn't decided yet.

Allison looked back at Luther, seemingly to hide the small smile on her face. "I think she'd love to meet him at some point." She said, quietly, but not close to a whisper.

Klaus grinned. "I'm sure he would love to meet her too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Might be about fifty spelling mistakes in this one, sorry for that, just realize that despite my main language being English, it does not mean I can write it perfectly, or speak it, considering I somehow say American words sometimes, thing is I've never been to America, or had any American family members. So I'm choosing to blame media for this completely inconsequential quirk I have.  
> Thank you to everyone who reads this story, it means so much to me to know people actually at least give my story a go, and thank you to PainInSilence, for being the first to leave a comment.


	11. chapter 10 - The morning after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plans are being forged, and almost everyone is ready for the final attack. If only family drama didn't get in the way all the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well look here, another chapter. Probably would have updated sooner, but the internet didn't work for 2 days and after that I started writing another project in the same multiverse as this, it's confusing, because it's Jaden. But we're almost at the end of the arc, and trust me, it's a nice long chapter up ahead. I am also happy to say that besides the pre-planned sequel, there is a high chance of another as well.

Jaden sat on his bed, staring at his sword, it was the early hours of the morning, and he couldn't sleep, it was just annoying really. He was caught on the thought of the fight, how he'd missed Cha-cha moving to grab his wrist. The thought drove him on and on, and it was one of the weird insecurities he seemed to have taken from Vietnam. His dad had taken a fear of guns and overprotectiveness, his papa had taken the coldness of war and the warm memories that kept him hopeful even in the fear of death, and Jaden had taken the fear of losing everything he loved. It was something he guess had started in Rome, when he'd first fought. He was aware he could have easily died that day, he didn't know how to use his power properly, and was going through a lot that day, so when he walked through that portal, just to end up facing a monster he thought was fiction, it terrified him. After that, there were pressures on him, not heavy ones, but more, expectations that drove him to become better. He fought whatever he had to and gained many skills in five years, but those skills had never really been put to the test until Vietnam, were it was a life or death situation. The shock of war had drove him to become grater than the sum of his parts, and he'd had to admitantly be knocked down a few pegs, and that stung. It was probably the most notable thing that changed about him, guns were fired all the time in Rome, those didn't bother him, it was the fact that war could kill off anybody, even the most unlikely of people. Jaden shivered at the thought and focussed on his reflection, a little more dischevelled than usual. He said, dropping the fancy blade onto the floor, before curling up in bed, he couldn't be bothered to clean up tonight, he'd do it in the morning, he told himself, when he wasn't as worried about tonight.

*******

Jaden was late for breakfast the next morning. He usually woke up at seven oclock sharp, but the extra hours had made that nearly impossible, instead it was closer to 10, and he already knew he wasn't going to very productive today.

When he got to the table, everyone looked at him as he slugged to the table, subconsciously dragging his sword behind him. He passed his dad, walking to the closest empty chair and almost collapsing into it. "Are you alright Jaden." Dave asked, Jaden didn't look up, or say anything, not even when food was placed in front of him by Grace, bless whatever robotic soul she had. She gave a silent prayer that she always stay sweet and generous as she was.

Before long, he felt a hand reach up to his forehead from behind him, and he realised it was his dad, checking temperature like the mom he was. "No fever." He said, and spun the chair Jaden was sitting in around so he could face him, "What's wrong Jaden." Klaus pressed. Jaden knew neither him, nor Dave would let up until they knew what was bothering him.

"Just, couldn't sleep last night." He explained, and Dave walked over, placing a cup of coffee in his hands, before joining Klaus in the parental interogation club.

"Jaden, you're fine, we're fine, ok, nothing went wrong last night, ok, everyones safe." Klaus reasoned against the insecurities inside Jaden. Jaden smiled softly, taking a sip of the coffee, it was vanilla, his favourite, his smile grew, and he turned back around to start eating.

Klaus and Dave went back to their seats, still with concerned faces though. Jaden took a deep breath, and began to eat, looking at the others who were all strangely present, and quiet. "So what's the action plan?" He asked between mouthfulls of egg and toast. The silence turned uncomfortable for a second, something wasn't right, he looked between everyone. "Did I miss something, you're all acting as if you've seen a ghost." He glanced at Klaus "Sorry dad." Klaus gave him a somber smile, before snuggling back into Dave's chest.

Diego sighed, "Apparently we need to stage an intervention before we do anything else today." He said. All eyes immediately turned to Klaus, who actually looked shocked for a minute.

"Wow, don't look at me, I haven't touched drugs for almost a year." Deadpanning from the rest of the table. "From my point of view." He snuggled deeper into Dave, who wrapped an arm around him, an amused look on his face.

"It's Luther." Allison said. She seemed worked up, stressed, and a little out of it, obviously whatever had gone on with them had caused her some stress. Allison turned to Luther, who was sat next to her, looking as though he didn't have a clue what was going on. "Look, I'm sorry, but this isn't like Klaus Luther, we can't afford to have you be high all the time, we need everyone at their top game if we want to be able to save Vanya." Allison said sternly. There was a lot of care in her voice though, she was treading on light ground, and she knew it.

"I'm in fine condition." Luther shouted back, before wincing and retreating slightly.

"Luther, I found you in the middle of a club, with who knows what drugs in your system, and a bunch of teenagers plotting to scam money off of you. YOU ARE NOT FINE." She was serious, she had the tone of a mother telling her child off, and maybe it was warented, if he really was at a club last night. Soon though, Allison let out a breath and relaxed back into her chair, which she'd stood up from in a fit of what was probably rage. It was honestly the most interesting thing happening at the table, besides Jaden's dads snuggling, which wasn't anything new to him.

There were a few minutes where no-one spoke a word, and just sat, with Jaden finishing his breakfast in the background, but that was finished way too fast for his liking, so he looked over at Five, who looked thourouly amused for once. No doubt this was the most interesting plot twist to have come from the family since he'd come back to this time. He was just sat there, all posh and collected, sat up straight, but also leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, sipping his own coffee. Which was when Jaden realised that the seating arangements had changed slightly, Five was at the head, with Jaden to his right, and Luther to his left, Allison next to him, and then Diego and next to Jaden sat Dave, with Klaus weirdly layed both on his lap, and the other chair.

Jaden looked at Five incredulously, trying to get something out of him, wether it be an answer, or an ice breaker of some sort, something needed to happen. Five smirked in response, before talking. "Alright, enough interventions for now, do we have any clues on where to find Vanya?" Five asked, he used the same tight, strict voice that told Jaden he was just trying to keep order.

"They're at his grandmothers old house, Vanya left a message to let us know." Allison said, she was looking at the table, as far away from Luther as she could, withought it looking like she was avoiding looking at him.

Five nodded in contemplation. "Right, we go there today then, Allison you go with Diego and Luther to look for the address, while me, Jaden, Klaus and." He gestures at Dave, thinking for a second, had he actually forgotten his name? "Dave." He said finally, it seemed more like a eurica moment to everyone else, but then he continued. "We'll prepare for the journey, including plans of attack, and what to do in certain situations, we don't know how much about her power Vanya knows, or if she can control it yet, so we need to be careful. Afterwards, we meet back up and go to the house, together." Five finished, he seemed satisfied with his solution to the situation, Luther and Diego, didn't look as pleased.

"Dad put me in charge of the team, I give the order." Luther stood up, and tried to ignore the wince he gave at the motion. Behind him, Allison put her face in her hands, seemingly annoyed at the situation, and Diego stood up, probably to provoke Luther some more. Five, meanwhile, was calm, and sat patiently before answering in his stern voice.

"Yeah, when we were kids, Luther. And look how much good that did you, what would you suggest we do in this situation." Five retorted, patient, what was he playing at this time?

"Well, Klaus, Dave and the kid go research the place." Jaden bristled silently. "Me, Allison, Diego and you wait for them to tell us the locaction, then go, and the others come back here to keep an eye on the assassins." Luther said simply. Five very clearly pretended to consider this for a moment, before smirking.

"Yeah, I don't think that would work, see. Jaden is the second smartest person in this family, under me, especially when it comes to tactics, and Klaus and Dave have been in a war, as well as Jaden. We're the only people in this house who've had experiences with guns, both good and bad." Luther narrowed his eyes, but Five was clearly really confident in his plan right now. "While we're here, we also make sure the assassins are fed and out cold, and if something happens while we're gone, Grace and Pogo are fully capable of taking care of it." Five glared at Luther "Allison knows where to get the information from and is reliable, but not the most effective fighter withought her power, thats why you and Diego are going with her, just in case this guy figures out something is wrong, and attacks on sight." He made no attempt to be gentle about it, going for bluntness over peoples feelings, and Allison looked no end of conflicted about it from near him.

"Why does she need the both of us to go with her." Diego said, finally speeking from where he'd been silent from across the table. "We're fully capable of taking care of a regular homocider on our own without the ape coming with us." It was interesting to note that he didn't question Five's leadership of the situation, perhaps realising he knew best in this case.

"Yeah, I should help planning, no way am I leaving you and Klaus with two guys that none of us besides Klaus Know, and we all know he's never had a great taste in friends before." Luther said. That clearly got Klaus' blood boiling, as even Jaden could feel the tension becoming too much for Klaus to bare. "I'm sure if Jaden wanted to, he could be even worse than those assassins, and we have no way to know if we can trust him, or anything he says." Oh, that was a personal attack, and Jaden did not take too kindly to those.

Jaden flipped his persona to one he was more familiar with in this situation, and grinned. "you're right Luther, I can be more dangerous than them, but tell me." He paused crossing his legs and leaning back into a slouch in his chair. "What use would I even have to infiltrate this family." Jaden could feel the questioning glare from his dads, they recognised his more regal personas easily, he took it when dealing with political sitautions sometimes, if someone was downright threatening he'd fight no problem, but this was a situation even he realised he needed to be careful with.

Luther wavered for a second. "Um, we have money." He said, it was quieter than usual, clearly he was shaking in his skin, and Jaden let out a deep echoing laugh, raising from his seat in a singular swift move, he was wearing normal clothes, but that didn't matter, not when the look was so clearly effective withought his royal garbs.

"I have plenty of that, Luther Hargreeves, gold, jewels, you name it." His voice was smooth, calm collective, that of a calculative killer, if he wanted it to be. He grabbed his sword on the way to Luther, walking over the table with ease until he stood straight, looking down at Luther blade pointed towards him with a sinister glare on his face. "Trust me Luther, if I wanted to kill you, I'd do it." For a second Luther looked like he'd shit himself, an instinctual fear of authority had passed through the room, and it only took a glance to tell that they weren't seeing Jaden right now, no, this was something else.

Jaden relaxed, shoulders dropping and a smile appearing on his face, he turned to Five, the only person to his left, he looked thuroughly spooked in that moment, his face turned in the dirsction of Jaden's ankle more than anything, and it reminded him of the time when people actually tried to lick his boots, it was just a weird experience over all. "Oh, lighten up will you, I'd never actually hurt you guys, ok, you're my family." He said as he dropped back into his chair. No-one moved for a few minutes.

*******

Klaus wiped sweat off his face as he walked out of the dining room. He leaned against a wall sighing as he thought of what Jaden had done. It had basically amounted to scaring the shit out of everone, and it scared Klaus more to think of the after effects of his actions than the terrifying moment itself. He'd reminded Klaus of his father, Mr Hargreeves, not in his actions, but more in the aura he'd given off, how completely in control of the room he was, just like how he remembered him being in Vietnam. He knew that his beloved son was raised to believe he was above everyone else, and he knew that persona could be called upon at any time, but to just take control of the room and completely derail a fight before it even began, and he honestly hadn't expected Luther to be as effected as he had been. They'd begun to scatter after that, going off to get ready, they remembered the plan, they just probably didn't want to talk about the elephant sized ego that just showed up from behind a tree.

"Well that was intimidating." Dave said, driving Klaus' attention to him as he stood there, looking less traumatized than everyone else, but still mildly disturbed.

"I'm sure it will become one of those topics that just, won't be talked about in our family." Klaus said, griving a light shrug. He tried to keep his tone as light as possible, but it was hard.

"Well thats a bit stupid." Dave smiled. How was it so easy for him to shruf this off, even he'd been scared of Jaden's god persona at one point. Infact he was pretty sure he'd been the sabject of a simular experience, though nowhere near as violent, before.

"It's just how our family works. We find a big problem, but because it makes us all uncomfortable, no-one will speak of it." Klaus said,he was annoyed with the whole charade at this point, so he was probably going to make a mental list of these topics to bring up. But most importantly, he was going to have to have one of the few disiplanary conversions he'd done with Jaden. Thankfully now was the perfect time to do this, since no-one was actually going to do anything for at least a few minutes.

"You ok Klaus?" supportive husband Dave asked. Klaus frowned slightly at his own thoughts.

"I'm going to have to talk with Jaden about this." He said, before moving to embrace Dave, who reciprocated easily.

"Ok, just be carefull, he doesn't seem to be having that good of a day." Dave said carefully, before Klaus pulled back from the hug and nodded. Very few words had to be spoken between them these days, a testiment to their closeness, and their understanding, but also to how compatible they were, at least to the romantic eyes of both them, and Jaden, who deeply apreciated the security of family. He smiled again, before walking to find where ever Jaden was hiding.

*******

Five was in his room, talking to Dolores when Luther opened the door, without any kind of warning. The fucking idiot looked pissedas fuck and Five was not ready to deal with him. "Hasn't Jaden scared you enough today Luther." He said withought looking, and instead focussed on Dolores, beautiful, lovely Dolores, who was not aproving of Luther's glare right now.

"You actually trust him after that show." What was it to him who Five trusted.

"Well, I trust him not to get us killed, which is more than what I can say for you." Was it a low blow? Five hadn't been there for Ben's demise, and didn't really care that much about it, he was was gone, not forever, he had little doubt that a sober Klaus could see him, at least. But that was just it, it wasn't like they couldn't communicate ever agan, as long as Klaus didn't twist his words, which he doubted he would at this point in time.

"What's that supposed to mean." Luther threatened, and pushed Five's door closed angrily. Five wouldn't be surprised if there were cracks now, with the slam it made.

"Luther, calm down, just because I trust him not to fuck up a plan, more than you, does not mean that his attitude today went unnoticed, capish. Besides, it was in response to you, and I've learnt that whatever problems we have with eachother, needed to be sorted amongst ourselves, so leave, me, out of it." He said, now glaring at Luther, who was glaring back. Thankfully he walked out of Five's room without a fuss, and Five could return all his attention onto his gorgeous, girlfriend.

 

*******

Jaden swayed haphazardly. He wasn't paying attention as he sat on his bed, thinking, or trying to at least. Thoughts didn't stay in his head, and it was annoying. The sound of a door opening drove him to looking up, it was his dad. He shuffled to one side of the bed, making room for his dad to sit next to him and put an arm around him.

"You realise you scared everyone today right?" His dad stated more than asked, and it drove Jaden to sigh.

"I know, I know, it just got annoying to see the two arguing over something so meaningless." Jaden said, curling up a bit more than he had been and leaning into his dads excepting arms. There was a light smile on klaus' face as he looked down at Jaden.

"Well thats just Luther and Five for you." He said light heartedly, before frowning. "But you're going to have to promise to try and not use that tone against us again ok." Jaden nodded lightly in response, remembering what he'd been told about dear old Grandpa Reggie.

"Your dad right?" Jaden asked carefully, looking up at the big eyes of her father, which seemed to water slightly as he held tighter to Jaden.

"The thing you have to realise about Reginald, was that he adopted us for our powers, and only our powers." He said, voice cracking slightly, though he tried to keep a hold of himself as he talked to Jaden. "Many of the others died, and those that survived were adopted by families that actually wanted them, we were the unlucky minority." He said, looking down at the still messy floor.

"I know dad." Jaden said, hugging the other tightly.

They stayed like that for a few minutes, before Klaus regained his composure fully and pulled away. "Alright, now get ready, we've got to try and end this today, alright." Jaden nodded in response, he felt a lot better after that, and was confident about their chances of success.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, this was probably the most filler like chapter there is, and no the final battle of the arc isn't the next chapter, it's the chapter after, but arcs start and end next chapter so its important, and it wasn't quite final battle worthy. There isn't much to say about the story here. I did finish stranger things recently, which was nice considering I've been considering watching it since I found out Billy exists.   
> Thank you to everyone who reads my insane ramblings, I really appreciate it.


	12. chapter 11: Comes to a head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time to strike has come, but relationships are tested along the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for posting chapter 12 first. Stupid mistake on my part, so double chapters yall. :P

Luther, Diego and Allison left with the minimal amount of agression they could, namely a few shouts between Five and Luther, with both Luther and Diego leaving various levels of glares at Jaden, who stood his ground sternly.

"Whats their problem?" Jaden asked sarcastically, trying to keep lighter tone. They already had enough serious stuff to deal with.

"They hate anyone who has any modecre of inteligence higher than them." Five retorted, as he started counting amunition for his gun. Jaden would probably end up bringing his gun as well, at least so his dads had something to fight with.

"So whats your plan then?" Jaden asked, he was sat on the couch that was opposite to the bar, he didn't need to prepare much, besides from some light armor he usually wore in fights like these.

"Get in, find Vanya, make sure she knows exactly whats going on, and get out with the least amount of incriminating damage as possible." He said, hardly paying attention to Jaden, not like the other minded much.

"You just wanted to get rid of Luther and Diego, didn't you?" Jaden asked grinning, he was teasing of course, but Five didn't seem to take note of what tone people used if the thought didn't appeal to him in that moment.

"Yes. Is that a bad thing?" He said, and somehow Jaden immagined he couldn't care less if he actually answered or not, but this was an interesting question, so he'd bite.

"Not at all, they clash with everyone, and Luther seems to have ricks for brains." Five actually chuckled at that slightly, so he was getting to him some then? The thought made Jaden extremely delighted.

"Moon rocks for definite." Five answered. He looked up at Jaden, with a neutral expression on his face. "Out of all of the family, he's the most likely to get us all killed due to some stupid mistake, but he's also the one who'll attempt to make everything about him if it all goes wrong, and if I had a choice, I'd exclude him from this entirely." Five was serious, Jaden already guessed he'd do something like that, not that it really effected him if Luther was banned from helping.

"But we need the full force of the academy to save the earth." Jaden finished off as he stood up. "Yeah I get it Uncle Five, he's probably only good for bashing down doors anyway." Jaden joked. Five gained a loo on his face, it was one of shock and confusion, but also held a bit of intruige.

"I don't think you've called me Uncle Five before." Five said. Was it really that strange for him, Jaden knew he was about 60 age wise so he was hardly going to call him cousin.

"Have I not?" Jaden asked, more to himself than anything. He shrugged, before turning away "I have to get my armor on before we leave, so you think about that, alright." He said, opening a portal to his room and walking through.

* * *

 

 

Five sat in the drivers seat of his van, Klaus and Dave holed up in the back leaning over the seats shoulders to get a good look at the front two seats. Jaden was next to him, holding his knew phone, he was wearing a couple of arm braces and a chest plate that acted as a sort of binder, acording to him. Five had only listened in as Jaden had gleefully told his dads as they got into the van, but the most important thing in his possession was a phone, Diego's phone to be precise, which had not been returned, and was what they'd use to get the location of Vanya. Tension in the Van was something between too thick to breath, and not there at all, as there was a sort of ease to it. Five realised they probably had a good balance of inteligence and fighting skills between them, considering each one of them were conpitent in both. Five was gripping the steering wheel in anticipation though, waiting for a call or a text, something that would drive him to move.

There was a ding, a text from the phone and the tension came thick as Jaden read it. "Who's eudora?" Jaden asked, he seemed confused.

"Why does it matter?" Five asked, as he loosened his grip slightly on the wheel.

"Some guys texted Diego saying that someone called Eudora is asking for him." Jaden said, he looked to his parents in the back. "Do I answer him?" Klaus seemed to think for a moment before replying.

"Oh, I think Eudora is Diego's not quite ex." Five was confused by this entire conversation, and was about to faceplant the wheel at the thought of it.

"How can someone not quite be their ex?" Dave asked from beside Klaus. Who Five saw was shruging from the rearview mirror.

"Well last time I heard of her, she was still talking to Diego, I mean you don't become povo Batman withought a commisioner Gordon." Klaus said, way too cheerily for the situation. Five was still listening in though, just in case the news came, he couldn't let his guard down for even a second.

There was a second chime. And there was silence, sweat heavenly silence. "We've got it." Five started to drive.

* * *

 

 

It wasn't a long drive, but Five has forgoed picking the others up, to make sure they could focus their sights on at least getting there, and no-one could really decide if it was for the best. What had once been a lighter more arefree atmosphere, had turned into one of deep contemplation. Thankfuly the others had been able to decide who was driving, and weren't far behind acording to Diego who had the phone currently, on the other side of the line. There as a thin lining of trees that were beginning to filter into Jaden's line of sight, and he gripped the phone harder in nervousness.

There was a gantle hand on his shoulder, and he leaned into it ever so slightly, allowing it to keeping him steady. He smiled at that. He was ready for anything.

"Are we alomst there, my legs are killing me." Came his dad, as he seemed to shift about to get a better reach of Jaden, it was quite calming really.

Five sighed "Depends if we can get through the bloody traffic." Five said, glaring at the cars infront of him. Jaden couldn't help but laugh at that, and his dad seemed to agree.

"Wow Five, I actually took you for the type to just disregard the rules of the road." Klaus said, probably smiling, but definitely joking, by the way he couldn't keep his voice serious. Five was glaring really hard now, but despite the teasing, there was no actual malice to the glare.

"Maybe I am, but theres a difference between driving crazy, to get there faster and putting everything at risk by going into the other lane, so I'm taking a gamble and waiting." Five declared leaning back from driving once they had stopped moving, and looking across at Jaden with an unreadable expression, not that JAden was trying to read it.

Jaden looked down at his phone, it was a picture of the area from a few years back. Probably not the best to go off of, but google maps had delivered on the basic location,so all he had to do was concentrate. He tried to feel a rift opening underneath the van, it would be the largest one he'd opened, but if he could do it. He physically felt as the rift slowly opened, he was concentrating on that location so much, but he physically felt every milimetre the portal opened, and suddenly.

The van fell about a metre in height. There was a slight crash, not load enough for one to really notice, but it was there. Jaden opened his eyes and closed the portal, letting some of the tensity he'd bilt up go. They were infront of the cabin.

Everyone was in shock for a few seconds, but soon enough, Jaden was taken into a huge hug from behind. "Are you alright Jaden, I've never seen you open one that big before." His Papa asked, though the hug was from his dad. He could only sit their frozen for a few seconds, before his brain started working again.

"I've never opened one that big before." He was still shell shocked at his acomplishment, but Five had decided it was time to move. He was getting out of the van as quietly as possible, taking light steps as he got to the ground. Jaden followed soon after, his slightly taller apearance aiding in that. Though he was sad he had to leave his dads arms. He left the phone, picking up his sword and began to mentally prepare himelf for a fight.

"You guys should go in first." He said, to both his dad and Five. Five looked at him with confusion, and Klaus concern, but his Papa gave him an understanding look, he knew what Jaden was implying. "Aunt Vanya has only met me once, she's more inclined to believe you two than me." He heard a shed of disapointment in his own voice, which he hadn't meant to be in there. His dad gave him an empathetic look and once again wrapped his arms around Jaden, the hight difference wasn't too big to be awekward, but it was still prove of how much of a lanky stick he really was.

"None of us were really that close Jaden, and to be fair, she'd probably listen to you more than us, you have actual life experiance that wasn't effected by our dad, she'd probably think we were lying or something." Jaden looked up at him, he wore an expression of pain, and showed how much he really wanted to actually know her. Maybe there was more truth behind those words than he'd initially thought. He nodded. "At least we don't have the dellusional duo with us." Dad joked, "Now that would have been terrible."

* * *

 

 

Allison was twitching with anger. they were stuck in traffic after being left in the dust by the others, and she now saw why.

Luther and Diego were shouting at each other in the back none stop the entire ride. At first they'd tried being silent, but Luther wanted to go over the plan, and as soon as he opened his mouth, Diego had retorted, and now the conversation was about something completely irrelivent. She wasn't even listening to it anymore, she'd tried to focus on driving, but now that they were trapped within fifteen layers of traffic, she couldn't help but hear how fucking ridiculous it was.

"And why was it you got to go to the fucking moon again, oh yeah, because you are incapable of living without having to take orders from dad, that's a fucking horrible quality for a leader." Diego shouted. Allison wouldn't be surprised if everyone within a miles radius could hear the two grown men bickering in the back of the car, because she was sure she was halfway to becoming deaf with their severe lack of volume control on full display.

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP." She finally snapped. They did, thankfully, she was honestly tempted to use her power again, just so she could not listen to them for a few minutes, but a rumor like that could have great consequences further down the line if she wasn't carefull. "honestly, are you two ever not at each others throats." She said, as she tried to get a grip on her self control.

"It's not my fault Luther's got a weird fucking hero complex." Diego said, more like a petulent child than a grown adult. It was then she realised that that was exactly what Luther and Diego were, petulent children who didn't get their way in life, and were fighting for their fathers attention, even though he was dead now. Was that always how it had been for them, just children fighting to be their dads favourite child. None of them had grown up for years, except Vanya who'd always been distant from the competition, and Five who'd had almost an entire lifetime to get over it. Even Klaus was free of it now, he'd found a family, but Allison-.

"Look, I do not have a hero complex, I just like to know things are getting done. If anyones got a hero complex, it's Five and Jaden, I mean they come into our lives, and suddenly they know everything, we don't even know Jaden, for all we know, he's the one who actually starts the apocalypse, not Vanya." Luther started again. And that was it for Allison.

She threw open her door with so much force, that had she had Luther's strength, it would be half a mile away by now, and walked out. She was done pretending to be child, had been for a long time, but this was just ridiculous. She didn't look back as she walked past all the cars, maybe Luther had a point, Five and Jaden had come into their lives with no warning, and with seemingly far more knowledge than them. But Allison could just tell that that was from experience, and not lies. Jaden had gotten them all to remember Vanya was one of them through his knowledge of emotions, and Five had led them to find out what caused the apocalypse through his knowledge of strategy, something Luther and Diego both lacked. They weren't needed for this mission, never really had been, but Allison, she'd helped, and if there was one mission she had right now, it was self improvement, and if that meant shedding Luther from her life again, so be it, she would not go back to playing those games again.

"Allison, wait." Allison stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of Luther's voice, but she didn't turn around, she wouldn't let him undo all of the hard work she'd done, not now.

"Go home Luther." She said. She clenched and unclenched her fists a few times to get the anger out of her tone, she didn't need to rile him again.

"What, but Allison, we have a mission." He said, lightly, was he trying to make this jovial, now that he'd finally pushed her away with only his words.

"Luther, you aren't needed for this mission, Five sent us to collect the location to get rid of you and Diego." She finally looked at him when she said that, her resolve crumbling as she had a shred of pity for Luther, he didn't deserve to be lied to, but she could now understand both sides here.

"Then why did he send you with us." She smiled somberly at him in response, she knew her own worth on this mission, and she knew she might get in the way, but if there was a chance she could help, even if it wass just talking to Vanya, being there for her, she knew she had to do it.

"It's less because why I was sent with you, and why you were sent with me." She said, maybe it was a bit sad to know she was the one that they coud cut out of the team, just to make sure Luther and Diego couldn't ruin things, but she chose to think that it was infact the most important job of them all. "It was a chance to make sure you weren't there to ruin whatever they have planned, because guess what Luther, they have more emotional maturity than you, Diego's right on one thing, you don't have the qualities needed to be a leader." She was getting angry again now. In the distance she could see Diego had stepped out of the car as well. Maybe it would do him some good as well to hear this. "Leaders have to take everyone into account, including their teammates, and judge situations based on intelect and emotional inteligence, and guess what, you have none of them, I have no doubt, that if you were in charge of this mission, you would have put saving everyone else above even your own family. Why is it? That when I think of you leading this mission, I think of you disregarding how Vanya feels. Vanya's not just an enemy we can lock away and never think about again, she's our sister, and the only way we're going to stop the apocalypse is by for once considering what she feels, and right now she's probably feeling scared and alone, and we cannot have you making her feel worse, so just. Go. Home. Alright?" She began to walk away again. She didn't hear his heavy footsteps following her as she continued on though, and hopefully that meant he got the message. What she did hear though was Diego chasing after he quick pace.

"Do I need to repeat that to you as well?" She asked, now extremely stressed, and she was thankfull she wasn't going to go back to acting for a while, because otherwise she'd probably look like a wreck. She needed more time to sort herself out.

"No, I get it." Diego said, as he finally caught up and walked beside her. "He brings out the worst in all of us, but I know I'm not much better, I can't rely on Eudora anymore, and need to grow up." She would accept that as an apology for the shouting in the car. She just hoped he stuck by that later down the line, when this was all over and done with.

"Come on, we've still got a bit of a treck to go."


	13. chapter 12: end of an era

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter of the first arc. Everything so far comes to a head with a final confrontation for Vanya, and the worlds sake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I am so sorry for not updating for so long. I wrote like, two sentances I wasn't proud of and went off of the fanfic for months. There's no excuse for it really, though I have entered college so I have been a bit busy as of late. Anyway, last chapter of the arc. Probably gonna start doing covers for the different arcs. we'll see.

Five knocked on the door of the cabin, Jaden glaring holes into the back of his head to make sure he didn't do anything too rash off the get go, that was Jaden's job if anything. His Dad and Papa were behind them, with their guns in the car, in fact they weren't bringing them in at all, thankfully. Jaden was able to be diplomatic, and that was probably the best first aproach.

The door opened, and it was Leonard or Harold, or whatever his name was. He didn't look happy to see them. "Why are you here? Don't you know this is private property." What kind of game was he playing.

"We're here to see Vanya." Five said, there was an edge to his voice, and it was like the opposing man hadn't even realised he was there by the way he seemed to glare when he looked down at him, but he put on a more pleasant mask when he spoke to them.

"Of course, how silly of me, you're her family, she's right inside, come in." Jaden doubted every word that came out of his criminal mouth, murdered people before, no doubt he'd do it again if he had to. But he also put on a more pleasant face as he walked through the door to the inside of the cabin.

Vanya was indeed inside, she was sat on a couch breathing heavily and shaking slightly. Jaden and the others ventured inside, but as soon as they got within a few steps of the room Jaden heard the door lock shut, trapping them inside withought another word. This made Jaden suspicious, it was so very clearly a trap, but why would he trap them inside _with_ Vanya, unless.

There was a scream, as Klaus was thrown to the back wall, Jaden looked and saw that Vanya had tears tracking two distinct lines down her face, something was definitely wrong with this picture. Klaus was coughing and spluttering against the wall, unable to breath as Vanya held him against the wall with some kind of force that only got stronger and stronger the more noise was in the room. And then it stopped, Vanya crashing to the floor in tears, and Klaus collapsing against the wall begging silently for breath. Dave was beside his Dad in seconds, and Jaden would have joined him, but he needed to know what was wrong, so him and Five gave a nod before advancing on Vanya.

"Vanya, are you ok?" Jaden asked cautiously, emotions flying through his mind as he got closer, Five not a step behind him. Vanya glanced up, her eyes white and her skin pale, she gazed up at them with something between pure fear, hurt, desperation. She held her left wrist, which was clearly bruised with a hand marking, it wrapped a little two tightly around it, and was clearly a cause for her emotional outburst. "What happened Vanya? What did he do." Jaden tried, Five was just behind him as he rushed quicker to Vanya's side, this was a mistake as he felt a pain rush through his back. He was across the room, clearly they couldn't get close enough to her to talk to her properly. Five seemed to learn from this and stayed where he stood.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She muttered to herself, she was looking at the wooden floor and shaking her head quickly. Jaden could hardly consider how to react to this. "I'm dangerous, you should stay away from me." She said, a little lowder. It was still soft, meek Vanya, but there was much more pain behind it.

"You're only as dangerous as you think you are." Five said logically, he was still frozen in place, and Vanya looked up at him coolly, before turning her head towards the door.

"Leonard told me you lied to me all my life, that you all knew I had powers." She said, clearly some form of manipulation, even if it was based in truth.

"Vanya." His Dad coughed, as Dave helped him to his feet. "If we knew you had powers, trust me, we never would have pushed you away." He said, his voice full of empathy and understanding. this didn't help though, as Vanya sneered, another push of energy pushed out, forcing everyone against the wall, except Five, who stood with stronger footing and only went back a couple of centimetres.

"You still did though, every one of you treated me like I was some sort of embarrasment." She shouted, the tears where thick, as they rolled down her face.

"You're right." Jaden spoke up, as he took a hard step worward, there was still energy pushing against him, but he had been trained against stronger winds before. "It was wrong for them to push you away, and it was wrong for your father to hide this from you." It felt like he was shouting, despite Jaden barely being able to hear his own voice. "But if you don't get control of your powers, you're going to kill everyone, and I know thats not you Vanya, I know you wouldn't want to kill everyone." He tried, he just needed her to calm down. But Vanya's force kept up, there was a ringing in his ears now, as the force took him back. Despite this he pushed, and he could see the effort his dads where putting in to also get closer to her.

"You don't know me, none of you do, you don't know what I'd do to them, if I got the chance, maybe I want to finish this world more than I want to save it." This was bad, Vanya was upset, and betrayed, and objects were flying around the room in the wirlwind of energy she was creating now, windows breaking and wood creaking as the cabin slowly began to fall apart. And through one of the broken windows, he could see the menacing grin of Harold, his single eye shining from the light, making him look like some sort of supervillain, and it drove fear into his spine.

"Vanya." Klaus whimpered as he was yet again thrown against the wall from where he'd made some progress, this time though, he was knocked out, head rolling to the side as he made a crevice in the wall from the impact his body made.

"DAD!" Jaden cried out, at the sight of his limp body, he wanted to run to him, hold him, make sure he was alive and ok. Tears fell from his own eyes now, he had to stop Vanya, he had to.

* * *

 

 

The past few days had been really pleasant for Vanya, she and Leonard had gone to his grandmothers old cabin, and she'd found out she had powers, it was the best week of her life. That wasn't to mention the fact that she felt like at least some of her family were trying to know her. She particularly liked her new nephew, and was glad Klaus finally seemed to have gained some sort of hapiness from it all.

Vanya put her phone down, she'd just left a voicemail for them, she didn't want them to worry after all, especially Allison, she could tell she was trying her best to be a good sister, but she was really being way too overprotective with her about leonard, he was trustworthy, she was sure of it.

The sound of the door opening and closing caught Vanua's attention, they'd gone out the night before and were met with a group of thugs who beat Leonard up. Once they'd come out of the hospital and Leonard had tried training her a bit, he said he needed to pick something up from his house, that he'd forgot. He did not sound happy though, as he walked into the living room. Vanya got up "Is everything alright?" God she sounded so domestic right now, but she needed to know what was bothering him. He looked at her with a pointed glare that she had never seen him use before.

"Someone broke into my house." Vanya took in a short breath in response. Allison wouldn't, would she? Leonard moved more into the room, taking his own place on the couch, though he fell withought vigor. "They stole a very important book from me." He said. "One I could have used to help you." Help her? What kind of book was he talking about.

"You think it was Allison don't you?" She asked softly, her voice cracking slightly at the thought, Allison wasn't a criminal, and she certainly didn't break into peoples houses on a regular basis, that was more Diego's thing if she was to be honest.

"If not her, than some other member of your family." He was not happy at the thought, and Vanya bristled slightly, most of her family wouldn't. Klaus may be a thief, but he'd have no use for a book. If the book had information on her powers, than Luther could have taken it, but she highly doubted he'd even know it existed. Allison, sure maybe she cold have broken into his house, but she sincerely hoped she wouldn't be that desperate to prove Leonard to be evil. And Five, well, she didn't really know anymore.

"My family wouldn't do that." She insisted, despite herself, Leonard just gave her a pointed glance, before rolling his eyes and softening his gaze into a more loving one.

"They're bad news everyone, they're all crazy, I've looked them up Vanya, all of them are notable for something after they left the academy, and none of them were good." So maybe her family was messed up, she still cared about them, and almost none of them had any sort of motive to break into his house.

"They're not that bad Leonard, besides, they're all I have." And she wouldn't trade them for the world. She hoped that part would be a given at this point, but in a hurry, Leonard rushed to her, taking her hands into his as he looked into her eyes, with all his warmth.

"But they aren't anymore, Vanya, you have me now." It was sweet, if not a little bit weird for him to say that. She didn't try to struggle to take her hands from his, but that didn't mean she felt entirely comfortable with it. Something just felt off about it was all. He hadn't been acting like this this mourning, was that book so important? She tried to smile as sweetly as she could, but she could tell it came off as a bit forced because of the way Leonard's face dropped into a frown. "What's wrong Vanya." She sighed in response.

"I can't just abandon them Leonard." She said, pulling her hands free of his and turning away from him. "I feel like I'm just starting to make progress with them, and I want to get to know them." She tried. It was the honest truth really, being with Leonard was so wonderful, but right now she also felt like she had some real family for the first time in her life. Leonard's frown only deapened though.

"You're saying you don't want to be with me, after all of this?" He sounded offended, and that was not what she'd wanted. She was shocked by his extreme reaction, what was wrong with him right now, he wasn't like this, this wasn't her Leonard. Kind understanding, loving Leonard.

"What, no, no, I'm not saying that at all, I'm just saying you aren't the only person I can rely on anymore." God knows she'd get annoying after awhile, her constant doubt and anxiety, that still somewhat plagued her now, even with he ineffectual medication gone. She smiled light heartedly at him, trying to lighten the overly grim mood that had begun to surround them already. despite everything though, Leonard seemed intent on seeing the negative side of what she was saying.

"No, no, I get it." His face turned dark, as did his words, and something made an almost audible click, as all of a sudden his demeanor became much more serious, and much darker. He stood up, leaving a shocked and scared Vanya behind, not enough that she'd risk using her newly developing powers, but enough that she was sat frozen as her boyfriend began to walk infront of her, back always facing her as he did so. "You've grown tired of me. All I've done is try to help you Vanya, but if you're going to dismiss everything I've done for you-"

Within a split second he grabbed Vanya's wrist with an almost inhuman amount of strength, and dragged her in the direction of the hall. She was too shocked to do anything but stumble along and try to dislodge his hand as he held onto her wrist, and she blindly stumbled along. Withought even noticing what was going on, Vanya was thrown into a dark cellar that she didn't even know existed. The only light coming from the trap door above her.

"If you're going to act like a child, then I'm going to treat you like one." Something resonated with that tone, this image. She screamed, sending out bounds of energy she didn't know she had, but he'd already closed the door. She couldn't tell which way was up, and with the energy surrounding her, her head became light. There were flashes of something, someone, something their Dad had told her long ago, but she couldn't quite grasp.

She didn't even notice she was still screaming until her voice became horse and broken. She clawed at the sealing trying to find a way out of the room, but all she met was a thick ceiling, it was lined with layers of something, probably sound proof. And even the door had little to differentiate it from the rest, but she still found her fist pounding on it as she begged. Begged to be let out, begged for forgiveness, she'd done nothing wrong. But no-one came, and eventually, there was silence.

* * *

 

 

Jaden watched as his dads unconcious form was pushed against the wall, and suddenly he felt hopeless. It was a strange thing, being a god, when you had hope, it was as though you could actually carve the planets to your will, but when there was none to be found, it was as though you were swallowed by a monster, and was powerless to get out as you slowly waited for your doom. The tears fell fast and hard after that, and all of a sudden it felt like he was Ten again, facing the world through new eyes as he finally took his new identity, and begged his parents that he was still the Jaden they'd raised. It was all he could do to slowly turn himself to his Dad's direction, his prime objective to keep them safe. "DAD!" He shouted again, hopelessly against the now raging storm, but he wasn't the only one who was crying. Jaden turned to Vanya, who's face had morphed into one of pain, deep scars that cut through her were suddenly revealed to them. His Papa was also crying and even though JAden couldn't hear him, also screaming for Klaus to wake up, his hand grasping the others as he tried to crane his neck towards him.

Jaden then glanced at Five and he saw what was probably the most scared face he could make. Jaden took a few steps toward him, holding against the storm was hard, let alone going against it, so it took a while to get as close as Five was. He was frozen with shock, and Jaden could understand that, despite everything he'd gone through, despite all he'd done, he was still a child at heart. He'd never really gotten the chance for true emotional growth either, and he was the luckiest in that sense, they make it out alive, and he alone had the chance to do it over, with wisdom on his side, he'd find his way through childhood. Jaden put a hand on his Uncle's shoulder, who turned to face him. Jaden smirked.

"VANYA!" Jaden shouted, taking another step. It was even harder than before, but someone had to do it. He vaguely saw Five trying to manuever towards his Dad's, this was his job now. "VANYA LOOK AT ME!" He shouted, there was a hint of anger, and quite a bit of a command in it, bit it got Vanya to look up from where she'd retreated into herself, and focus all her attention on him. The wind got stronger, but so did he. "I HAVEN'T KNOWN YOU VERY LONG, AND MAYBE THEY HAVEN'T EITHER, BUT WHATEVER LEONARD DID TO YOU, IT WASN'T RIGHT!" He'd hit a nerve, Vanya's now emotionless face began to soften, as did the energy in the air. "HE'S BEEN USING YOU THIS WHOLE TIME, HE'S JUST TRYING TO MANIPULATE YOU INTO ENDING EVERYTHING SO HE DOESN'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH HIS PROBLEMS, BUT THAT'S NOT THE ANSWER." The wind slowly began to weaken, he was actually able to get relatively close to her now, close enough hopefully so he didn't have to shout. "Vanya." He tried softer this time. "I know what it's like to find out someone you love doesn't care about you." Vanya was beginning to cry again. "And I know all you're siblings do aswell. Maybe they're only learning that now, or maybe they've known it they're entire lives, but please, we care about you Aunt Vanya." Vanya fell to her knees, she was still pale, her clothes bleached white from the strain of using so much power, but she was stable now. Jaden enveloped her aunt in a hug, and the last of the energy disipated, he vaguely heard his Dad fall onto the floor, but he had to focus on Vanya right now.

"He tried to make me rely on him." Vanya whispered, her voice weak and horse, it sounded like it was dying as well, and he could only wonder what that bastard had put her through.

"He tried to manipulate you into killing us." He said softly. "That's why he locked us in here with you." He said. Vanya pulled back, and looked at him with something between hurt and anger, though the two were never truly far apart.

"He locked me in a cellar last night, I couldn't, I couldn't." Jaden could only feel empathy for the near shell of a woman in his arms, and took his time to embrace her again.

"It wasn't your fault, it was all him, don't worry." He surprisingly wasn't angry, and he didn't feel he needed to be for this. It was an accident on her part, but fully intentional on that bastards.

There was the click of a gun from behind him. And he didn't have to turn to see who it was. "Very unwise to leave your car door unlocked, who knows what someone could find in there."

"Shit." He said, letting go of Vanya and straitening his back.

"Might even find an arsenal of weapons." He daren't turn. "Vietnam war guns, rifles, plenty of ammunition, even a sword." He then felt the blade of his sword against the back of his throat, pushing his head down. "Don't make a move Jaden, wouldn't want your head to come off." It didn't need to be said that it went for the others as well, but from where he was, he could see the hurt and shock on Vanya's face.

"Leave him alone Leonard, he's done nothing wrong, none of them have." Fuck, he'd been through their van, he just hoped he hadn't found-

"I don't think so dareling." The journal. "You see this book was in my house not even 24 hours ago, and somehow it's now in their possession, care to explain why you were in my house, anyone." He was adressing everyone, but with Dad unconcious, Papa having nothing to do with any of this, and one very incriminating Five, this scene wasn't looking too good.

* * *

 

 

Five was stuck for words, and Klaus was in critical condition right now. He daren't say a word, now, but his hand was on Klaus' wrist, basic first aid knowledge was a nightmare to work with, but even he knew that Klaus shouldn't have this weak of a pulse. His gaze shifted to Dave, who looked scared in all fairness, and he had every right to be, his boyfriend was sporting major injuries, probably a concussion, broken limbs and internal bleeding at least, and that small, but growing puddle of blood did not look positive. As well as his son having his own sword pressed against his neck. And he'd read that damn book, which meant he knew about their powers, and their weaknesses, he had to have something prepared in light of Five teleporting, and with the gun aimed straight at his head, he could only guess it wasn't good.

"It was me." Five spoke out, he had to make an effort to keep his voice stable right now, emotions were getting a hold of him, and he had to push them down. Leonard turne towards him, straightening the pistols aim to his forhead.

"Oh I have no doubt, number Five." Leonard never made a move, but with the way Jaden craned his neck and gave a slight nod to him, he could tell he'd made the right choice. "You do have the most invasive power of them all, teleporting, time travel, just a bit of a shame that didn't work out for you really." Was he talking about him getting lost in the future? Whatever the fucker had planned for them right now was not going to turn out good. "You make any attempt at that, and the kid won't be the only own without a head." Was he bluffing? There was no way he could track his movements when he teleported, but could he risk it, Jaden didn't seem to be making any moves to escape. But on a second glance, Five realised what Jaden was doing.

"Oh yeah, and how." General curiosity and a need to keep this man distracted took over. He just needed to wait a few seconds more.

"And why would I tell you that." Five so desperately wanted to challenge that bluff but-.

Jaden grabbed onto Leonards wrist and twisted, the hand that was holding the others sword letting go of said item. Jaden twisted around kicking the man in the leg and letting him fall to the ground as he caught his sword. Five teleported behind him, grabbing the other and wrenching the pistol from his hand. The mans fall was ungracefull, and made a heavy hitting noise on the wooden floor. "How the fuck did you." Jaden smirked.

"I'm a hargreeves, we're full of secrets." Five could really only role his eyes at that. The smirk on Jaden's face was annoying really, this was not a situation that was deserving of it. Clearly Jaden wasn't paying enough attention though, as Leonard kicked Jaden's leg from under him, clausing him to fall. In a haste, Five didn't hear the bullet shot that rang out, he felt pain blossom in his shoulder and looked up, at the person who shot him.

"Really was shame when you blew up our organisation Five." The Handler said, her voice dripping with a sweet sort of liquid poison she used to get people on her side. Five scowled.

"Of course you would use him to do your dirty work." Five's voice dripped with his own venom, and in a way, they were like two snakes fighting for dominance, except one had an army of snakes, and the other had a zoo. The Handler smiled as she started to circle the room, a smile gracing her now scarred face, he'd gotten her good, hadn't he.

"Well, I'm not the only one doing out of the box thinking, kidnapping some of our workers, really." She gave off an aura of amusement, but the bitter hatefull sort you found in the deans of old boarding schools, bitter and lonely with old age, and it suited her all too well.

"You sent them after my family again, you said you wouldn't." He tried, but all he accomplished was wiping the amusement off of her face as she got closer to him. Five put a hand on his injusred shoulder, and he could briefly hear the sound of shuffling, before he saw Leonard walk to The Handler's side.

"Well clearly plans changed when you blew up my facility." Her face and tone were serious, and Five knew he was in some deep shit if he couldn't take her down quickly. He teleported nehind her, but the gun was in his face before he knew it.

"LEAVE HIM ALONE." Jaden shouted from where he was getting up off of the floor. The Handler didn't move, or turn, but she did seem to put some focus on him. "I'm the one you want now, aren't I, I'm the one whos apparently messing with the timeline." There was a grin on The Handler's face, and though she was right infront of Five, he could still see as Jaden made his way closer to the two, his sword dragging slightly behind him.

"By all our accounts you weren't supposed to exist anymore." She said. She was glaring at Five daring him to do something, before he felt his arms get taken by other some people behind him. After that, the Handler smiled again, and turned to Jaden.

"I'm going to become an unkillable right? Someone immortal, and therefore you can't do anything about me, which means you have to have run into people like that before." Jaden glared at her, as she walked over to him, the position was bed for Five, he could hardly see anything that was going on, or who was holding him, but if he had to guess, it was probably Hazel and Cha-cha, or some of the other assassins under her control.

"Oh, so you were informed." She turned to glare at someone near Five, presumably Hazel, before turning back, gaze presumably hardenned yet again. "There are very few unkillables on record, and from all accounts we don't know where they come from, or, most of them at least." She had started to circle Jaden, who looked relaxed, how could he be relaxed, this was not the time for asking questions.

"One was a member of the forty three? And what, the others were all just normal humans?" Jaden challenged The Handler, this really had him curious didn't it.

"These unkillables are unkillable for a reason, we don't know what, and we don't know why, but you." She grabbed Jaden's chin "Seem to have a part to play in that." Five couldn't see what was going on, but he was starting to get feisty. He tried to break the hold the two other assassins had on his arms, but they didn't budge, this needed to stop, before something happened.

"Wait a second, you're not making any sense, I thought you were supposed to keep the timeline in tact, and to do that you had to make sure the apocalypse happen, not protect the timeline from immortal people?" Jaden was just as confused as Five was becoming. What did Jaden have to do with immortal people. He was trying to think back to when he was in the commission, he remembered being told about them once, but he couldn't quite remember what was said.

"Don't you get it." Oh, she was angry now. "We don't cause the apocalypse because we want to erase everyone in existance, we cause it, because what comes next is worse." Shit.

"W-what?" Jaden stumbled over his words, he was gaping at The Handler, he just knew it. This entire thing had not only their brains fried, but everyone else that wasn't the Handler, who was in the room. Something worse? How was that possible, worse than lifeless husk of a planet, worse than a complete annialation of all life? "What the fuck could be worse than planet wide destruction? And what does that have to do with me?" Jaden demanded, he sounded horrified, confused, and Five, though silent, was no better off.

"You don't want to know-" I knife came barreling from somewhere behind Five, landing straight in the back of her head. She immediately fell forward, landing at Jaden's feet as he collapsed back in shock. Five teleported out of Hazel and Cha-cha's grip, his shoulder hurting as he did so.

"Shit." It was Leonard, still stood infront of where Vanya was sat on the floor, in shock, and crying. He ran out of one of the broken windows, another knife flew towards him, but he was out of site, before it hit it's target, but the cry that came a second later told him it did. Hazel seemed to give up then, throwing his arms up in surrender, and gaining a malicious look from Cha-cha. They didn't have they're masks on, guess they couldn't find them in time, which was stupid considering they were the only people who held time at their will, with their briefcases and such.

Eventually Cha-cha raised her hands too, she was surrounded by various degrees of dangerous people, with no guns to hand, no helmets to mask their identity, and the only briefcase being in arms reach of Jaden. They were done, it was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I can't promise I'll go back to any proper scheduling or anything like that, at least until season 2 comes out. But I do very much plan on finishing this story. Warning that characters may begin to get even more ooc than before though, I haven't rewatched the show.


End file.
